


monachopsis

by noctemlux



Category: EXO (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Crossover, Falling In Love, Fluff, Idols, Multi, Seokjin in Exo, Slice of Life, rated M for the shit the ent. industry does in the dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:46:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8345695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noctemlux/pseuds/noctemlux
Summary: monachopsis: the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of placethe rest of bts would like to say a big fat fuck you to the stroke of pure bullshit to whoever thought it'd be fun to transport them to a universe where suddenly, seokjin isn't part of them - not anymore. instead, seokjin is known as jin of exo, flower boy, visual, and sm's pride and joy. [originally titled as; mercy mercy me (parallel feats)]





	1. good morning w/o the good

**Author's Note:**

> [side eyes other incompleted fics] 
> 
> oh well, as you can see, this is what tea and playing awake on repeat does to you kids. 
> 
> this is mainly yoonjin, hence the tag it's either a switch between two povs; yoongi and seokjin, or scattered pov's all over the place. i have yet to decide. other relationships will come up but they're like, small and minor so y'know. i might update the relationship tags if they do become more mentioned along the way.
> 
> anywho, this is a short chapter because i have no idea how you guys are gonna take it, so here we go, i'm sure the next chapter will ease up the confusion and have a larger word count ^-^
> 
> bgm; vultures - labrinth
> 
> (edit: 1/12/16: for new readers or people who are just popping by and you see this message, i am here to set out a little notice. this fic will contain other relationships, it's jin/yoongi endgame with ot7, some kyungsoo/jin, some other exo members/jin and also some girl characters/jin. would it be romantic for the girl characters? no, mostly platonic. bc the seokjin in this story is pretty gay. yup. if you don't like seeing your oppar with a girl, well, sorry (not sorry). also, i will not depict the kpop media as this cotton candy industry, because it's not. i will address some real problems, there might be mentions of non-con, depression, suicide, mental illnesses, etc. i will put a trigger warning if there is, but for the most part it should just be a small mention of it. the kpop media is very filthy, just so you know. i'm staying as true to character as i can, but i do not know any of them personally, if they are considered to be ooc in your mind, then they are written as that for a purpose. any negative comments made in this story towards an idol, a person, or anyone in general do not reflect my own opinions on the topic. if i do say something like, "character a was known for being an asshole", that does not mean i believe character a is an actual asshole. they are characters, and this is a work of fiction. yes, most of them in this fic are real people, but i don't know any of them personally, their personalities described by me is never 100% accurate. it will be based on canon events and stuff, but this whole 'jin in exo au' is completely and utterly fiction. thank you.)
> 
> [VIETNAMESE](https://www.wattpad.com/story/126544712-monachopsis-writtenby-noctemlux) version (translation by July_28)

he opens his eyes to a familiar little room and their manager crowding on them with an alarm in hand, walking around dragging them out of their blankets. 

 

yoongi doesn’t really recognize the scene, but it’s so familiar, it’s almost too real of a dream. everything looks like their debut days and from the confusion on the other’s faces, they think so too. yoongi’s eyes widen, taking in the small cramped room and jeongguk’s scrawny body, the seemingly much younger looking faces of the others, their bodies and blankets laying side by side, and yoongi closes his eyes. opens it. 

 

everyone still looks too different. too young and too much like their debut days, where they didn’t have enough money to dress, not even enough for photoshoots. everything felt different. and something was missing.

 

he hears a high pitched voice, one that hasn’t been doused in puberty yet and he turns in confusion, and in the direction is jeongguk but so different. he doesn’t have a defining jawline or brown hair, he doesn’t have broad shoulders, he looks like the jeongguk that used to cry about missing home and too much pressure, and that doesn’t comfort yoongi, not at all.

 

“where’s jin hyung?” the younger asks, “why are we all here?”

 

something dawns on the others. yoongi looks around and there’s no appearance of the man, and he counts the bedding, the pillows, yet it only adds up to six. there’s a wave of desperation piling through him now, so he counts the chairs stacked with clothings, he looks for the mario plushies and ugly posters he knows seokjin used to put up.

 

he finds nothing.

 

their manager frowns, “jin hyung? who’s jin hyung? and what do you guys mean? we’ve always slept here, i know you guys don’t like it but we have a tight budget.” sejin sighs, “i’m sorry, i really am. but you guys are working hard so there’s hope, alright? things will hopefully change for the better.”

 

namjoon’s voice is rushed, panicked, “jin hyung? you don’t know jin hyung?”

 

sejin glances at namjoon, uttering his next words slowly like a parent to a child, “no... am i supposed to?”

 

yoongi finds his voice amidst the stunned silence, “yeah. yeah - it’s kim seokjin- hyung!”

 

there’s a flicker of recognition in sejin’s eyes and yoongi almost faints in relief, but it’s gone as fast as it came, “kim seokjin? you mean exo’s kim seokjin?”

 

jimin speaks for the first time, the word slipping out of his mouth quietly, “exo?”

 

their manager laughs awkwardly, eyes shifting between their surprised faces, “alright okay. you’re lucky i don’t fall for pranks easily, and good thing you guys don’t have a schedule today. or else bang pd-nim would have my head. uh-”

 

he eyes namjoon, yoongi and jimin with bewilderment, and shifts his glance to hoseok, jeongguk and taehyung, who only sit there with expressions ranging from bewilderment to confusion, “get yourselves together.”

 

the door slips close.

 

“how does he not know jin-hyung?”

 

“where is he? shit- where are we?”

 

“hyung, calm down!”

 

“stop,” hoseok says calmly, “we need to be calm down. let’s figure out the basic things. what’s the date?” he looks down, squinting as he digs around for, yoongi assumes, his phone. count on hoseok to remain calm in situations like these. 

 

(yoongi blinks sadly at jeongguk trying not to cry in the corner, gaping at everyone with wide eyes. he can see namjoon frowning heavily, hands covering his face, the leader role still a heavy weight on his shoulders. taehyung and jimin huddle together, teeth sticking out to gnaw on their lips. yoongi doesn’t know what’s happening but he wishes he did.)

 

hoseok finds it underneath his pillow, tucked in like an old habit, and flips it around. an samsung. hoseok only had a samsung when it was debut days. when they couldn’t afford the luxuries.

 

silence. everyone is turned towards him, watching him with careful anticipation.

 

slowly, hoseok turns the phone on, and the bright screen reflects on hoseok’s face, a look of horror dawning it.

 

he turns it around and yoongi leans in, blinking repeatedly to adjust to the brightness in this dim room.

 

_ january 13, 2013.  _

 

months before their debut. 

  
  



	2. belonging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> seokjin wonders if he belongs. because he does, he knows he does, but sometimes, he feels like he doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for mel! aka epistolic, her bday was like, two days ago and i wanted to upload this way earlier but... so here you go mel have fun being old while still looking incredibly youthful! <3 (i think you all know her so i'm not gonna bother linking her ao3 account, she's the one who wrote that heartbreaking, tragic, cheating!au, yoonjin. yes. that's her. she's a great person... [side eyes] )
> 
> this is seokjin's pov. yes i will switch between pov's in this story, the pov will be made clear in the chpt summary so don't fret.
> 
> everyone's so nice it makes me blush so thank you to the ones who previously commented and gave kudos, made my day <33
> 
> please enjoy, i didn't know so many people would be interested so i tried to update this as fast and as best as i can, i hope you like it.
> 
> i was listening to a song and it was so yoonjin, i almost screamed!! now i can't remember what it is !! so no bgm for this chapter, just read this to some soft nature/home sounds or your natural surroundings wherever you are.

some days, seokjin wakes up to the ringing of an alarm clock, a sharp pain shooting through his back as he blinks open his eyes to the ceiling. days like these, he doesn't belong.

 

but he does.

and that's the problem, he supposes, that there's an itch at the back of his neck that comes and go, a sense of belonging when he feels like he doesn't. because he knows he belongs with exo, he belongs with this group of people who are talented beyond imagination, this group of people that give out so much love. they make him happy in a way that candy does for a child, it's so innocent and fulfilling, a love he is lucky to have

 

there's junmyeon, their leader who makes dad jokes and just tries too hard, struggles too much. whenever seokjin sees him in his tired state, he wants to reach over and envelope the man in a hug, to squeeze the stress away. and it's familiar, the feeling, he's done it before, but the familiarity feels like he's done this to someone else, someone who didn't smell like linen and peaches, someone who wasn't junmyeon. when seokjin hugs junmyeon, he feels the man relax in his arms and a soft smile, but seokjin always expects a dimpled smile in return, a coarse hand stretching out to entwine their fingers. he expects the unexpected

 

there's beagle line with their ruckus and laughter, their smiles that just light up the room in a way that you can't help but stop and stare. and it’s funny, how they’re all ninety-two liners, seokjin being the youngest of the three just by a few months. but he lacks so much, he doesn’t have the contagious laughter chanyeol is known for, the screams jongdae uses to pump up the atmosphere or the socializing skills of baekhyun. he doesn’t have any of that, and it feels like he never will.

 

sometimes, the fans would tell him that he’s a part of beagle line too, part of the trio that is chanyeol, baekhyun and jongdae. sometimes, seokjin agrees, because he likes letting go and being wild and making jokes that even junmyeon can’t bear to listen to. he likes being as crazy and happy as them, as carefree as them. he likes the fact that he’s not the eldest or the leader, that he’s not the one that has to be responsible. this is what he is used to, at home, on stage, and everywhere. 

 

sometimes, he doesn’t agree. 

 

because it feels weird, it feels weird being so young with people older than you that are even more energetic, more enthusiastic, it feels weird and off, and every time something happens, seokjin feels the need to take responsibility. feels the need to whip something up in the kitchen whenever minseok looks at the line distribution, whenever yixing misses home, whenever zitao can’t find the right words to express himself, whenever they struggle.

 

but he’s not suppose to, he can and he does but yifan does the talking, junmyeon does the cheering up, he doesn’t have a reputation for being the one people go to to get comfort, the role he seems to feel most comfortable with doesn’t belong to him. and it feels, really, really, weird.

 

his role is the visual, the vocalist, the pink prince, these are the things assigned to him ever since debut, the latter assigned to him by fans. this is who he is, and he knows he’s more than just labels but it feels unfamiliar, these concrete labels that fans don’t toss around or forget about, how sm takes his attributes and flaunts it to the max, it’s weird, receiving so much limelight and he’s still not used to it.

 

(he always expects some offhanded comment about his dancing, or his singing, or just more people gravitating towards the more popular people of this group. and there is, there always is, but everyone has their fair share of fans overseas or online, so it surprises him, the blatant love they give so eagerly to him.)

 

they used to be unpopular, they were still competing with bap, and even though they came from such a big company, their road to success was not handed to them. their debut was tiring, he thinks the outfits were a bit over the top, and they all made multiple mistakes on their debut stage, but then their song ‘growl’ came out, and they topped the charts, gained fans in numbers they couldn’t ever dream of. 

 

maybe that’s why he doesn’t feel used to it. 

 

and as he turns his head to see all his members, smiling so genuinely in the pinpointed spotlights, he finds his own smile widen a bit. because he’s so happy to share his future with 12 other individuals, he’s so happy to see the possibility of their dream open before their eyes.

 

he’s happy, but it’s odd, the hesitant feeling probing at his heart. because sometimes their stages seem too big, their fans too many, and their songs too odd. it’s still it’s familiar tune, almost a soft lullaby, but seokjin distinctively remembers hard rap and cranky beats flowing into his ears. he remembers things that never happened, a memory that shouldn’t exist. (but it does, if only in his dreams.)

 

sometimes, he feels like he doesn’t belong, and, maybe he doesn’t.

 

* 

 

in his dreams, he sees six figures draped in black, dancing and singing to their heart's content. he smiles. then, he sees himself with them, interacting in a way that screamed closeness, fondness. the scene disappears. everything is black. then - one faceless figure greets him, smiling so fondly at him, smiling at him with so much love, it almost hurt. seokjin's hand reaches up to ruffle the figure's hair, but the moment his fingers laces it way through, the figure disappears.

 

seokjin stops smiling.

 

the next scene is nothing. it's black. the same figure appears and seokjin rushes up to him, but he cannot move. he can only watch, as the faceless man curls his legs in, headphones on his head, smiling in the same fond way as before.

 

faint music flows through seokjin's ears. it's his voice, in a song he's never heard before, in a tone so broken and sad. it sounds heartbreaking, it sounds desperate, it sounds like something seokjin has never sung before, never needed to sing before.

 

the music stops. the figure is gone.

 

he is awake.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading my lovelies. feedback, kudos, are always so, so appreciated.


	3. skit: expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yoongi has never felt the pressure more, it sweeps into his bones and shatters his heart, crushes him under the growing weight.

yoongi types 'kim seokjin' in the search bar, hands drumming against his thighs anxiously as the page loads. seokjin's face pops up, his hair dyed silver, plump lips curling inwards as a smile. he looks the same, smiles the same. he's kim seokjin but yoongi wouldn't have recognized him at all.

 

(lies. yoongi murmurs to himself. he would've recognized seokjin anywhere, would've been able to identify the man with hands tied across his back and his eyes blindfolded, would've been able to recognize his voice anywhere.)

 

he clicks on the first link, exo's growl music video. he remembers watching this with namjoon and hoseok, wondering if they'll ever achieve that type of fame. remembers their envy as the video views skyrocket to millions. yoongi watches it load, fingers gripping his thighs, volume at the lowest so not to disturb everyone else. the music video is the same as before, except seokjin dances with them, sings with them, acts with them. he sticks out like a sore thumb but yoongi supposes it's because that's his effect, he's always been the visual for a reason.

 

seokjin looks the same, stills dances a little bit awkwardly but much more polished than yoongi himself, moves with a grace yoongi's never really seen. seokjin gets a fair amount of lines, considering this is a thirteen member boy band, his voice sparkles in a way, in a way that he should have in bts. but then again, they never really gave him the chance.

 

yoongi wants to cry. but he can't, not yet, he's already seen jeongguk grab his phone and head off to the bathroom, jimin's face digging into taehyung's neck, hoseok with his legs folded and face tucked in. and then there's namjoon, sitting sullenly at the table, fingers dancing over the furniture and posters in a bittersweet nostalgia, face grim and lips tightly pulled in.

 

it's sad, it's painful and it's not a dream. 

 

*

 

they were debuting in a few months. their manager was running around, planning stages and confirming dates, with the low budget they had. they had the photoshoots today, the usual makeup and lighting crew nowhere to be seen. yoongi falters in his step before remembering it wasn’t 2016 anymore, they weren’t famous or rich. so he brushes his hair slightly to the side, tugs his clothes a bit tighter, and hurries over when the manager calls him over. 

 

namjoon is already in front of the white backdrop, staring at yoongi with eyes that almost look dead, but then he slips on his sunglasses and yoongi sees nothing. their manager gives yoongi something with multiple light bulbs attached, tells him to angle it so namjoon looks like he’s shining.

 

yoongi remembers this, they didn’t have enough for a lighting crew, had to work and sweat and be their own lighting crew in their own photoshoots. he wonders how the manager would react a few years on, when he realizes that all those years of hard work finally paid off. 

 

he holds the light as steady as he can, as namjoon poses awkwardly, and yoongi knows he’s trying not to cry behind the black sunglasses.

 

they promised each other not to freak out or tell anyone else about their situation. namjoon didn’t want to screw things up, and they were too worried and anxious to disagree.

 

from the corner of his eye, yoongi can see the rest of them watching on the side, hands crossed together, leaning against the wall. jimin, taehyung and jeongguk speak in low tones, eyes scattering all over the place. hoseok watches everything with a frown, and when yoongi catches his glance, hoseok mouths to him, 

 

no more dream.

 

*

 

back when they released their album, hyyh part one, they had a track in their album called “skit: expectations”. namjoon recorded it when he thought no one was watching, the voice recorder tucked by his sde. their actual conversation was much longer than two minutes, much longer than hoseok telling everyone to not have high hopes, much longer than the quiet murmuring. the actual conversation was much more real. (and namjoon cut out most of the parts, he didn’t tell anyone, but yoongi knows he was crying when he did so.)

 

yoongi remembers hoseok quietly telling them that he didn’t have much expectations for “no more dream” but then yoongi and namjoon were proud of it, they defended it with so much passion, that yoongi now kind of wants to laugh at it. because the song talks about all their problems, it was so personal and dear to their heart. but it wasn’t good enough, wasn’t enough to get them a win for their debut showcase, wasn’t enough to get sponsors or gain enough popularity to making a living. hip hop was yoongi and namjoon’s dreams, but it wasn’t for the others. not in that way. but then again, hip hop for namjoon will never be the hip hop for yoongi. they were different like that.

 

because hope was what drove them forward and hope was what later shatters them. yet, they win their first award with “i need u” and everyone cried and hugged, because it was happening, it was real, they were getting recognition.

 

no one could’ve ever expected their soar to popularity, competing head to head with experienced seniors like big bang and exo. no one expected it, and that was what made the spotlight so much better to be in.

 

now, they were going to go through all of it again, except all of it, without kim seokjin.

 

the weight of being the eldest has never affected yoongi, because he never was, but now it does, it falls on him like rocks from mountains onto unexpecting cars on highways, it crushes into him like an agonizing realization.

 

he kind of understands the debut days a little better now, understands why seokjin had locked the bathroom door when everyone was distracted, started crying in a language that was too raw to listen to. 

 

yoongi didn’t understand back then, because his driving force was music, he wasn’t an promising actor picked out from college, escorted into a place and position that was foreign and unknown, a place that wasn't meant for him. he wasn't any of that, and well, he's happy he wasn't.

 

he won’t ever be kim seokjin, and six has never been a lonelier number.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tried to squeeze in two updates this week due to the fact that i'll probably be busy next week, but i'll be on and off tumblr and twitter, so if you want to talk, do come and message me!
> 
> (also, the actual skit in the album is precisely them worrying about winning and losing, or what not. it inspired.. well, this.)


	4. nail on the coffin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> today is a good day and seokjin likes good days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh. growl was released in august but we're kinda still jan-feb setting here. [shoves face into hands] let's pretend growl and the album was released like, late december ok. anyways, have fun reading, this was supposed to be happy. as you can see in the beginning. but i failed. i'm sorry.
> 
> also this is a relatively short chapter.... i- oops. i trailed off because i lost... motivation.

today is a good day, today is a day where seokjin can dig his heels into his bed, stretch out his arms and enjoy the softness that envelopes him. today is a day where kyungsoo would be sizzling eggs on the pan, swatting away touchy hands as he gently pushes seokjin’s plate to him with his timid smile. the coffee machine tinkers in the background as minseok pulls out cups from the cupboard.

 

yifan would be dragging a tired tao out of his room, feet shuffling in the halls with pestered whines about beauty sleeps. yixing would have his phone in one hand, a slice of fruit in the other, already at the kitchen table seated. jongdae would be dancing around the kitchen, waking up jongin and sehun with snsd’s songs on full-blast.

 

seokjin can already see it in his head, hear the familiar melody of “gee” and jongdae’s happy giggles. and as seokjin tugs on a shirt, he notices the empty bed of kyungsoo. he is first hit with a wave of amusement, because his roommate loves his sleep and rarely ever wakes up before him. but he falters through his chuckle, confusion seeping into his feature because kyungsoo was a morning person, he always woke up before seokjin did. odd, how seokjin feels like he’s stuck in the wrong world.

 

*

 

they're still promoting growl with all their might, their company just realizing the amount of money it would continue to bring in. that meant more performances from them, more tired, sleep deprived nights. but seokjin knows they'd sacrifice so much more for this fame. it's different, being under a spotlight where the fans scream with your name, hands grasping a banner with your name on it, and it's in these moments that seokjin doesn't regret the years put into singing and dancing, doesn't regret listening to the instructor's pitiful comments.

 

sometimes, he does. he regrets all the times he had to wake up early to vocal lessons, not even a decent bite for the whole day. he regrets it sometimes, it jumps out from his heart and into his mind, his smile dropping when he remembers all the things he had to go through. seokjin can still hear himself crying in the bathroom, then cleaning himself up and picking up his brother's call, faking a laugh as he tells them that he's fine. those years of majoring in acting didn't go to waste.

  

exo, all thirteen of them, suffered a year for this, for all the fans and spotlights. sm was almost ready to give them up. but they weren't, none of them were. junmyeon who had to go through the most years of training, assigned the heavy role of being the leader, had cried the night their manager told them they'd do one last album and then, maybe, disband. junmyeon had cried. everyone had heard him.

 

tao, yifan, yixing and luhan had all gathered together and murmured in the language that bonds them together, tongues thick with a feeling seokjin never knew he would ever have to feel at his time and age.

 

tao cried. jongdae cried. chanyeol cried. all of them cried at some point from that day onwards, be it when they had to face the truth or when they finally won.

 

seokjin, then, turned to kyungsoo, the one he was closest to. maybe he should've turned to his fellow ninety-two liners, maybe that would've made more sense. but at that moment when junmyeon started folding his head into his hands uttering words seokjin never thought they'd hear so soon, kyungsoo had grasped his hand so tightly and subtly. seokjin turned to look at him and the younger smiled back, sad and mournful, and that's what it was like. it was like their dreams and hopes shoved into a coffin, just moments before it'd get buried alive under reality and pressure.

 

it was like saying rest in peace to something who had so much spontaneity, so much energy. it felt wrong, the words fitting like puzzle pieces from the wrong boards.

 

*

 

today is a good day, today is a day where they don’t have a morning schedule, where they don’t have to wake up to the blaring of an alarm, hastily shove their body into clothes they’re not yet accustomed too.

  
today is a day where seokjin doesn’t think about where he belongs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're wondering if there's gonna be kyungsoo x seokjin in this fic.. well, there might be.


	5. the reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yoongi kind of remembers why this has all happened. it's all his fault, and he wished he had at least the spirit to be surprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short. but many of you guys were confused on how everything came to be so with the recent things that happened, i compiled a little chapter, hopefully an explanation. if you have more questions, please feel free to talk to me on twitter and tumblr and/or curiouscat. thank you for all the comments, kudos and bookmarks, i never expected this to gain popularity so fast. ;- ;

yoongi is still not used to it. but he’s the oldest, he needs to be. he needs to be there for the others when they’re falling, when jimin or jeongguk miss their hyung, when taehyung misses his playmate, or when namjoon and hoseok miss the shoulder they could lean on.

 

yoongi - yoongi just misses him. it’s sappy, it’s weird, but it’s true. yoongi misses the bickering and the whining and the dad jokes that everyone cringes at, he misses waking up to the pit pat of footsteps, misses seeing the clean, bare face of seokjin smiling at him.

 

*

 

the biggest mystery, he thinks, is why has all of this happened? what have they said, or done, to have changed the parallels of this universe, to have let seokjin slip away into someplace that yoongi knew he didn’t belong in.

 

(or maybe seokjin did belong there, smiling and eyes shining with twelve other bandmates, maybe seokjin belonged there more than he did in bts. but yoongi can’t face the facts, because it’s not true, seokjin belongs in bts.

 

yoongi is in denial. or maybe just in love.)

 

*

 

sleep drowns him, and the dreams haunt him.

 

*

 

yoongi finds seokjin sitting cross-legged on his bed in their room, eyes hesitant and teeth nibbling lips, he look scared and yoongi couldn’t understand why.

 

the older sees him, and he shuffles around, folding his legs under him like a kneel. yoongi quirks an eyebrow and then seokjin’s gaze turns towards him, cold and brazen with some sort of determination that has yoongi taken aback, just for a moment.

 

they stare at each other like that, for a few seconds, then yoongi moves to sit on his own bed, hands cupping his chin as he leans in and asks, “what’s wrong?”

 

seokjin looks away. yoongi thinks he’s crying.

 

“i wish you guys would stop.”

 

“stop what?”

 

“the teasing. i know it’s part of the script and everything but- you guys always stretch it out that even the director had to ask if i was okay or something.. and he wrote the script! just.. it..” seokjin pauses, eyes blinking as if something was caught in it, “it hurts. okay? the teasing, the telling me that i can’t dance- it’s stupid, i know but i just feel like you guys always take it too far.”

 

yoongi blanches, mouth suddenly dry before he laughs, slightly, an octave higher and so, so fake, “what are you talking about hyung? you know we don’t mean any of it.”

 

“you do.”

 

“jin.. we don’t.”

 

the older shoots up, leaping off his bed and snarling, “seriously? don’t act as if i’m blind, i can see these things, you guys always exaggerate these things out and i’m getting tired.”

 

yoongi blinks, eyes curling into slits, “excuse me? jin you know it’s all part of the script, why are you pinning the blame on us? on me? we followed orders, that’s all!”

 

seokjin sneers, “i’m not saying all of you do it. i’m saying most of you do. you literally grab at the opportunity to say shit about me. don’t roll your eyes yoongi- yes i mean you, you specifically! you treat me completely different than how you treat jimin or hoseok or namjoon, and you know that. even the fans have noticed.”

 

“the fans aren’t that perceptive.”

 

“mine are.”

 

and yoongi blinks, a urge of fiery boiling into him, “oh i’m sorry. you have fans?”

 

seokjin gapes, before narrowing his eyes and huffing, something akin to hurt morphing through his posture, “should’ve never joined bts if this was the treatment i would’ve been given. sm wouldn’t do this.”

 

yoongi laughs, tongue curling in as if eating something bitter, “okay. go to sm. i don’t think i’d want you here in bts either.”

 

for a moment, seokjin’s shoulders droop and surprise flickers across his face, bare and vulnerable to the world. then it’s gone, replaced by thinly pursed lips and furrowed eyebrows, a fire burning in the coal of his eyes, “okay. if that’s what you want.”

 

the door slams shut. the music from hoseok’s, jimin’s and taehyung’s room has long stopped playing. yoongi hears rushed footsteps, someone calling out hyung in a desperate whisper. this time, another door slams shut. the sound resonates, and yoongi closes his eyes, scowling.

 

*

 

“i know why we’re like this,” namjoon tells him the next day, eyes squeezed together, hands clenching, unclenching.

 

“why?” yoongi looks away, swallows the lump in his throat.

 

“i think you know.” is all namjoon says, giving a meaningful glance before hoseok joins them, wrapping his arms around them like they were glass just moments from shattering.

 

maybe they were.

 

*

 

now that he thinks about it, sometimes yoongi does treat the others differently than seokjin. it’s part of the script, they’re suppose to embarrass their eldest hyung, but maybe sometimes it comes off as insults and blatant disrespect.

 

seokjin never reacted that badly. he hinted that he didn’t like it, but no one really listened because they thought he was joking, and yoongi especially, thought he didn’t mean it.

 

the scary part isn’t even the words he’s managed to have the audacity to say, yoongi thinks the scariest part is that through all this, through all the variety shows and performances, seokjin manages to keep a smile on his face and not even flinch on television or in real life. his acting skills are better than all of them would’ve thought, and no one really saw through any of it.

 

not even yoongi.

 

especially not yoongi.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a salty stan,, what can i say.


	6. finally you see me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> seokjin sees him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. this might've been the chapter everyone was waiting for. so- uh, don't expect too much, i'm gonna be emphasizing more in the next chapter because i wanted to focus on some other things in this chapter, aka the kyungsoo/jin. so yes, they do see eachother. does anything happen? well, not really. but next chapter. next chapter will be all the angst my dearest readers. but just enjoy this.. 1.2k words?? the most i've written so far in this. woo.
> 
> thanks to all who have left comments, thanks for taking the time to stop by!! <3

 

in 2013, multiple rookie groups have debutted, looking up to exo with stars in their eyes. seokjin is surprised because although he knows this is how korean courtesy works, hearing the words "sunbaenim" slip out attached to his name like it was meant to belong there, still leaves him a bit dizzy and confused. a bit of pride, a bit of everything.

 

it's the year 2013 and rookies and trainees all rush up to them with excited and uncontained words, and seokjin wonders why he's the senior now, wonders what he's done to deserve such praise. so he voices his thoughts out loud to baekhyun who laughs with a squeal, a giddy, "we debuted in 2012! of course we're the sunbaenims to them."

 

"oh," seokjin says, mouth a bit numb, "it's been that long already?"

 

baekhyun smiles, his eyes curling. but not in the impish way, not in the cheeks bulging, eyes like crescents look seokjin somehow has imprinted into his memory, "yeah. it's been that long."

 

seokjin doesn't feel like it's been two years. he still feels like he's a newcomer, on the stage dancing and singing like it's his first time. he's always surprised when they win an music award because, this doesn't feel right, the trophy a pressuring weight in his hands, solid and firm and  _ real _ .

*

 

he tells kyungsoo such at night in the dorm, and seokjin hears him shuffling in his bed, and he turns around to find kyungsoo's eyes blinking at him, little fractions of light poking out from behind the window curtains. 

 

kyungsoo stares at him, and he opens his mouth, shuts it, then opens it again, "you feel like you don't belong?"

 

seokjin likes this about him. the blunt edge to his voice, how there's never roundabouts with kyungsoo, just infinite straight lines shooting in every direction. you get to pick where to go.

 

seokjin shakes his head, "no. it's just.. i feel out of place sometimes."

 

kyungsoo is still looking at him, eyes looking like ebony in the moonlight, "so you feel like you don't belong."

 

and sometimes the bluntness of it all drives seokjin crazy. words curl at the tip of his tongue, something like "oh you remind me of-" and then his brain fuses and he stops. because kyungsoo doesn't remind him of anyone, seokjin has never met someone as sharp and soft as him, confined into this shape, this person. seokjin has never met someone like kyungsoo. this is weird. this is not normal.

 

"i don't know. i- it's whatever. i'm just stressed, you know?"

 

he adds in a little laugh to smooth out the corners of the tension in this room, but it doesn't really help much, kyungsoo sees right through him.

 

seokjin is not yet, not officially, an actor. he is only a man with years of film sewed through his skin, he is only a man with the instruction manual printed on his skull. he is not an actor, not yet. and maybe this is why kyungsoo can sense the awkward tilt behind his laugh, the jagged waves in it that sound choked up.

 

(a year from now, seokjin will be able to call himself an actor. seokjin will be able to write that down in the things he's known for, in a list only for him. he'll be able to walk up to his bandmates, tell them that he's an actor, and they'll exchange sad smiles, wrinkles mistaken as dimples, a chorus of "aren't we all" hanging in the air.)

 

kyungsoo sighs, pulling up his blanket and he tucks it under his chin as he goes back to staring at the ceiling, “do you want to belong?”

 

the question settles down onto seokjin, who takes a bit, just to think about it. 

 

seokjin bites his lower lips, eyes shutting close so he won’t be able to see kyungsoo, “yes.”

 

“hyung, you hesitated.”

 

kyungsoo notices every little thing. seokjin doesn’t know what to think about that, because it’s almost unsettling, how he has to watch himself every time he’s near the younger, afraid to mess up just a little bit. kyungsoo’s eye for detail, blunt words doesn’t really match his appearance, seokjin thinks. when kyungsoo talks, seokjin imagines a softer smile, chalky hair that’s been dyed one too many times, thin fingers and pale skin glowing in the sun. 

 

sometimes, when kyungsoo talks, seokjin closes his eyes just to grasp onto that image of this non-existent person, to hold onto it a bit longer.

 

seokjin squeezes his eyes shut, sinking into his covers, “no.. no i didn’t.”

 

there’s no response, silence lingering for minutes, and seokjin thinks kyungsoo has fallen asleep, until his voice pipes up again, “it’s okay hyung, you do belong. exo needs you.”

 

his eyes are still closed, and he doesn’t open them until he hears kyungsoo’s shuffling, his back turning against seokjin and he sighs, quietly in relief. seokjin’s not sure what he wants now, but he’s an exo member, his constant illusions and dreams are just figments, stirred from his imagination. stress does that to people, he thinks, makes them see things they shouldn’t be seeing.

 

* 

 

it’s exo’s goodbye stage, and seokjin is backstage laughing with junmyeon and chanyeol about bad jokes, his makeup slightly smeared, the stylists coming up to them every few minutes, adjusting their mic’s, wiping their faces, retouching. seokjin is excited, but just a little bit disappointed that they’re saying goodbye so soon, promotions are ending and it’ll be a few more weeks until they might see their fans from the stage, but seokjin is excited because no more promotions mean he can rest a bit more, eat a bit more. the diet they were on was driving him crazy. 

 

behind chanyeol and junmyeon, he can see the shadows and figures of the other members, all giddy and happy, the atmosphere a relaxing weight. from behind them, he sees rookies, and other groups, the rookies stick out like sore thumbs, nervous and stiff posture, eyes scanning around like mad dogs. it’s easy to differentiate them from the seniors, because the seniors know what they’re doing, but seokjin doesn’t really think that applies to him.

 

seokjin stops laughing mid-joke when he sees a familiar figure in the shadows, peering at him with wide eyes. the man has heavily lined eyes, a full-on black ensemble, his hair was tucked in a cap, scowl softening at the edges when he sees seokjin looking. seokjin stares, curious, looking for something, but he wasn’t really sure what. the man looks at him, eyes boring into his skin until the man turns away, dragging away what seokjin presumes is his bandmate, a young boy with soft eyes that seems to be on the verge of crying.

 

(if seokjin tried harder over the fans screaming and the people performing onstage, he would’ve heard something like a prayer, a pile of sorry’s balancing into a face being tucked into hands, knees folding in, chests heaving and the sound of a fist against the wall.)

 

seokjin’s eyes don’t leave them until they’re beyond the corridor, until the shadows disappear. he looks down, eyebrows furrowing because something was wrong with the scene that played out in front of him, he murmurs lightly, “who was that?”

 

chanyeol glances peculiarly at the direction he’s looking, smiling toothily, “oh them? they’re those rookies… bangtan sonyeondan, i think? from that small company that used to be a branch of yg.”

 

“oh,” seokjin says, eyes flickering to chanyeol, and then to junmyeon who seemed to be looking at him with worry edged between his eyes, “i see.”

 

junmyeon smiles softly, “seokjin, you alright?”

 

seokjin lets out a soft sigh, eyes looking back down the dark corridor that lead to nowhere and everywhere all at once, “yeah. just curious.”

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woops. rough ending. 
> 
> i wanna try something different for all the people who like to comment, i'm curious, what are your favorite lines in this chapters, the sentences that had the biggest impact or made you feel the saddest, or you just liked? please comment below with that line/lines and an explanation as to why, if you want, and if you have the time :^)
> 
> thank you for reading. as i've said, the next chapter will be the bigger things and all the drama so...


	7. the echo of memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yoongi decides that what is the most painful is not seeing the man, again, in physical form. it's that every single little thing comes down to, simply, kim seokjin does not remember them, and might never remember them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry this is late oh my god, what it's been 14 days or smth?? idk but i'm so sorry holy moly, i've been sick and then i had five thousand deadlines so i'm really sorry for those who waited so badly : ( i didn't mean to, i promise. so have 2k (i think this is two thousand words i'm so proud) from me as a sorry gift ahhhhh.
> 
> was this the chapter y'all been waiting for? i hope i didn't disappoint. 
> 
> this is for you guys; zephy (zephirie) and seul (cloud_9) for being on the receiving end of my spontaneous rants about happy jin pairings and how we could just ruin it with angst. much love. <3

yoongi stumbles back, turning around far too quick when seokjin sees him. yoongi's fingers hook around jeongguk's shirt collar, the man's - the boy's - eyes widening in an anguish that displayed too many emotions yoongi couldn't bother to decipher. yoongi pulls him back but jeongguk doesn't turn around, only stumbling in his steps, walking backwards, as yoongi takes him away. their room is only a few more steps down the corridor, a flimsy sheet of paper with the words "bangtan sonyeondan" labeling it.

 

yoongi pushes the door open, crashing headfirst into namjoon who takes a step back, looks at him, then shifts his glance to jeongguk, eyes still frozen in horror, fingers shaking. namjoon doesn't say a word, he opens his arm and envelopes the two in a hug. yoongi sniffles, but he can't cry, not yet. he feels hoseok joining, and then, jimin, taehyung.

 

they're still hugging, jeongguk is clutching at the back of yoongi's shirt, trying so hard not to cry because he knows they can't afford smeared makeup on debut day. hoseok is close to breaking, almost bawling and yoongi can hear his unsteady breaths filtering through the room.

 

after a minute, they let go, and jeongguk stops shaking, just a bit. yoongi sees namjoon's clenched jaw, hoseok's downcast eyes and taehyung's grim lips. jimin is leaning against the wall, and sinking down until his knees are propped up against him, his hands folding like butterfly wings against his face. 

 

namjoon bites his lips and takes a swing at the wall. hoseok crumbles under the noise even more and yoongi looks back down. yoongi frowns, staring at his toes as he hears namjoon’s body slump against the wall. there’s sobbing. and everyone turns away as namjoon cries so shakingly, the noise echoing in this little room. yoongi clenches his fist, bites down hard on his lips until he feels the metallic sting.

 

he needs to get out. 

 

*

 

yoongi leaps out of the door, away from the small and stuffy room, towards the bathroom. they call after him, cursing after his running trail but he can't make out any noise other than his heartbeat drumming in his ears. he shuts himself in a stall, fingers anxiously pulling through his hair, and he crumbles like sand between fingers.

 

yoongi leans forward, pressing his forehead against the door, breaths quick and uneven, eyes shut, because reality is hitting him harder than words ever have and ever will. he flattens his palms against the coarse, plastic, surface and yoongi lets his emotions run through him and pour themselves out of his eyes. yoongi lets the tears carve their way down his cheeks, dripping slowly onto the floor. lets it fall like the hope in his heart.

 

he wipes his eyes, uncaring of the fact that his makeup is smeared. yoongi unlocks the door, and grabs a few paper towels to wipe his messy face. he can't bare to look at himself in the mirror, not yet.

 

one hand is wiping his eyes as the other blindly reaches out to grab at the door knob. but his hand doesn't make contact with the cool metal but something soft, something like cloth slipping through his fingers.

 

the lump in his throat rises again, choking him so desperately that yoongi blinks, once, twice before he looks away. yoongi’s eyes first catch sneakers, then it trails up to ripped jeans and he stops. he knows. a scent of green tea and roses rushes into his nostrils. yoongi doesn’t look up, a moment of panic, maybe, as yoongi doesn't make a sound, only shoves his hand under the rushing hot water, hissing in pain.

 

"are you alright?" and yoongi closes his eyes because his voice is so polished, so smooth around the edges that it sounds exactly like seokjin but nothing like him at the same time. something about the uttered words sound mechanical but yoongi isn't sure, because maybe he guessed wrong, maybe this person wasn’t seokjin. he wants to turn around, and double-check, but he’s not ready. he only opens his eyes, nodding lightly, turning away to grab at more paper towels.

 

"my name's kim seokjin. are you from bangtan sonyeondan? chanyeol has told me about you, he says your rapping is really good."

 

yoongi doesn't turn around, because everything feels so wrong, so out of place. seokjin isn't suppose to sound so elegant and precise, that's not who he is, kim seokjin is awkward and goofy and an accident prone. he’s not supposed to sound like he knows what he’s doing, he’s not suppose to sound so sure of everything when they both had to go through years of disappointment, when they both had to work so hard to get where they are, when they both debuted together after all those times spent in the bathroom crying away all their insecurities.

 

(but then again, bts' kim seokjin no longer exists. to everyone around them, he is only a figment of their imagination, a memory engraved into their hearts. and that’s the sad part, that they are fighting, searching, for a man that no one knows even exist. they are putting all their effort into seokjin who wouldn’t even blink an eye at them, never in recognition.)

 

yoongi makes the mistake of looking up, trailing his eyes over broad shoulders and loose clothing, over ruffled hair and curious eyes. there it is, the person he’s been mourning over for the past months standing in front of him, so close but the distance, yoongi knows, is much too far. yoongi makes the mistake of gazing so intently, that a rush of emotions and memory surge through his mind, it scares him, this picture perfect image. it’s seokjin, but it’s not. 

 

he stares, eyes lingering on the faltering smile on seokjin's face, before yoongi coughs slightly, voice coming out more dry than he thought, "u-um. yeah. yeah i- thank you, kim seokjin hyu- i mean, seokjin-sunbaenim."

 

he bows, hair falling to the front of his face. when he looks back up, seokjin's face is unreadable for a second, eyebrows furrowed together like he sees something strange. but then his lips split into a small smile, a perfectly pitched laughter ringing through his ears.

 

(in this universe, yoongi realizes that this is who seokjin could've been. the seokjin standing in front of him now is obnoxiously perfect, there's no awkward stuttering or out of place dad jokes, no blushing cheeks or windshield wiper wiping laughter. the seokjin in this universe lives up to his potential and something in yoongi stops, because this is what would've been seokjin's life, this is what would've happened if seokjin took that chance. this is seokjin's life without bts.

 

yoongi doesn't want to admit that the seokjin in this life seems happier.)

 

"no need to call me sunbae. i've yet to live up to that title," seokjin pauses, "your name is..?"

 

yoongi looks away, he can't bare to look at him anymore, so similar yet he sounds so different. this isn't how it's supposed to be. 

 

he clears his throat, "i'm min yoongi, of bangtan sonyeondan."

 

from the corner of his eye, seokjin smiles, and it's beautiful, so beautiful that yoongi wants to cry, because there it is, the seokjin he knows, the smile he used to receive continuously from the man. he's in there somewhere, he has to be. 

 

"ah yoongi-ssi.. wait, are you older? i'm a ninety-two liner." 

 

yoongi opens his mouth to answer, but the words don't come out, dying at his throat. he isn’t older, but he’s the oldest in bts and that thought alone makes yoongi want to yell and point accusing fingers at seokjin, saying “you left me with all this responsibility, you left us all so unstable, you  _ left me.” _ yet he doesn’t get the chance to say it, the sound of a door pushing open interrupts their conversation.

 

he recognizes the man to be d.o, do kyungsoo of exo. the man glances at him, before shifting over to seokjin, who's smile grew wider, lips softening at the edges. yoongi looks away, clenches his fist and takes a deep breath. in another universe, yoongi would be taking the role of kyungsoo, but this is not his world anymore, seokjin doesn't love him nor does he even know him. this is not how things are meant to be, but yoongi will just have to accept it.

 

"i came to get you hyung, we're up in fifteen. junmyeon is going crazy and jongdae is screaming-" kyungsoo blinks, eyes shifting back to yoongi, "am i.. interrupting something?"

 

seokjin giggles, waving his hands around in denial, "no not really. we were just talking, this is min yoongi of bangtan sonyeondan."

 

yoongi bows, the words sunbaenim slipping off his lips like with the fluidity of a river, it's practiced, he's been doing this for years and years. kyungsoo stares at him, nodding back, before he entwines his hands with seokjin, "hi, i'm kyungsoo.. we gotta go, sorry about that, but yeah."

 

seokjin smiles apologetically at him, fingers curling into a wave before turning to follow kyungsoo.

 

“bye! hope to see you soon!”

 

then they’re off.

 

yoongi flings open the bathroom door, watches as the two walk away with seokjin’s hand bumping against kyungsoo’s ever so often. yoongi turns away, just as kyungsoo’s hand spreads itself on seokjin’s back. they disperse in the darkness, and it’s a few minutes of just standing there when yoongi hears the screams of adoring fans as exo enters the stage. then the music begins, and the fan chants start. the fanchants sound the same as yoongi remembers it. just a minor difference. just one added name.

 

*

 

hoseok finds him leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, fingers tapping gently on the side of leg. hoseok hugs him, whispering comfort with a shaky breath, and drags him back to their room. yoongi stumbles in his steps, tired and drained.

 

(seokjin is not seokjin. he is not seokjin in the way he talks and acts, it’s in how his words are perfectly articulated, as if thought out months before they were actually said. he is seokjin in the way he talks and acts, around kyungsoo, how he so easily lets the smile dawn on his face near the man. he is seokjin in every shape and form but he is the seokjin that knows not of the names of bts, knows nothing about the way jeongguk used to cling onto him like a koala, or how he used to do eatjins with jimin and watch animes with taehyung. he knows nothing about min yoongi, about the daegu boy that came to seoul to make it big, about the rapper that fell in love along the way with a giggly vocalist who’s laughter sounded like windshield and bells at the same time.

 

kim seokjin knows nothing about them - so it pains yoongi, to know of every single detail and every single memory when the man that it all revolves around, has no clue.) 

 

*

 

namjoon does their prep talk, it was just twenty minutes until their debut stage and their manager was running around with the stylists and the outfit coordinators, everything was chaotic and rushed. and namjoon slows down time with his words.

 

“we are still bts. seokjin-hyung... might not be here with us but we are still bts. it is okay. let’s do what we do best.”

 

all of them know that namjoon’s lying and choking back tears, but they don’t say a word, humming in agreement in this suffocating group huddle. they weren’t bts without seokjin, but for the sake of this debut stage, any lie to make them stable on their feet was a good one.

 

(any lie, to make them forget the absence of the seventh team member, was a good one.)

 

“1, 2, bangtan sonyeondan!”

 

*

 

on their way out, yoongi rips off the flimsy sheet of paper on the door.

 

they weren’t bts without kim seokjin.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you thank you for reading. i didn't really proof-read so please tell me if there are any mistakes/typos. feedback and comments and kudos are always appreciated!!!


	8. the push and pull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> seokjin receives a few warnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm just... going to name.... every one my chapters... a song title... bc... i have no inspiration... (ppssstt listen to b1a4's album, bap, and gfriend!! give them love even tho i'm centuries late i just caught up with all the comebacks ;-- ; h a ha)
> 
> a lot of this drew inspiration from arysthaeniru's fic [fame, money, success is all i need](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8834770/chapters/20256454) \- like honestly her characterization is so good, the content is so good, it's very real and very solid in the truth it writes. i'm not saying the seokjin-centric of her story like 100% of it is true but more so, her ideas are very accurate. basically it talks about what really goes behind the scenes of the korean industry aka niru exposing the cotton candy idol-making industry for what it actually is ;) if you like something very blunt with the industry, this is for you. it's super good, actually, regardless of what you like.
> 
> so here, i finally updated.... so here y'all go. (as you can see, as the number of chapters increase, the word count increases along with it. ;-- ; why am i like this)
> 
> (also listen to dilemma by homme, they're part of bighit too but bh likes to focus on bts more - the money makers amiright. anywho i really like this song so give it a listen if you have time!!)

 

morning comes and seokjin lies flat on his bed, eyes wide open staring at the ceiling fan mindlessly whirring, a slow and quiet rumble tuning out the rampage of loud thoughts fluttering in seokjin’s mind. kyungsoo, jongdae, baekhyun, and luhan are out training their vocals, and the dorm is almost empty as seokjin is sure yixing has left to find solace in the dance studio, accompanied by either jongin or maybe even yifan.

 

the others are out having the times of their lives with their friends, and seokjin lies tiredly on the bed, a pain shooting across his back, and he’s not sure if he’s capable of getting up. but he does anyways, feet slipping into his mario slippers, courtesy of a blushing fan at one of their fan meetings, heading into the direction of the bathroom.

 

he scrolls through his phone on the way, sending an laughing emoticon to kyungsoo, a selfie in the group chat - toothbrush in his mouth - and a text from jaehwan pops up, asking him if he’d like to come over, considering both of them were off from promotions. seokjin hesitates, but complies, sending a kissy face emoticon before closing the app and resuming back to brushing his teeth.

 

*

 

breaks from promotions and comebacks means a time where he can relax and worry less about fans chasing him down with cameras, making him worried over his appearance, and his sanity. but just in case, he tugs on his black cap and mask, hailing a taxi to go to vixx’s dorms.

 

hongbin welcomes him in, with a quick look around, outside the door to see if anyone else had followed, before his shoulders drop in relief, smiling. 

 

“can’t be too careless these days,” hongbin replies as seokjin sends him a questioning stare, “you know how fans are.”

 

hongbin grabs his coat, and seokjin tilts his head to the side as he takes off his shoes, “you’re heading out?”

 

“as much as i’d like to stay,” hongbin says as he puts on his coat, “since my schedule is freed up my family wants me to go over, i haven’t seen them since comeback.”

 

“ah,” seokjin nods understandably, “of course, have fun!”

 

“you too,” hongbin smiles, eyeing seokjin, as if trying to say something without really speaking, “with ken.”

 

it was a warning, seokjin supposes, a very clear one.

 

*

 

“jaehwan,” seokjin says, quietly, “do you think i’ll ever be able to sing as good as you?”

 

fingers brush over seokjin’s arm, gently and subtly, this is a moment they can enjoy, a memory they can keep to themselves.

 

“no,” jaehwan says honestly, and seokjin looks away, “you and i have different vocal range, but your voice is good harmony with the rest of exo, and in the end, i guess that’s what matters.”

 

“oh.” and seokjin ponders that for a bit, leaning in, “i guess.”

 

he tilts his head so he’s lying on jaehwan’s shoulders, eyes fluttering shut, “hey... do you ever get the feeling that you don’t belong?”

 

there’s an intake of breath, and jaehwan chuckles hollowly, “yeah, every time the netizens come out from their hiding spots and start tearing apart vixx - yeah. i get that feeling sometimes. do you?”

 

“yeah. you know min yoongi?”

 

jaehwan bristles, “no, not as well as i know park jimin. they’re from the same group, right? and well, jimin latched onto hongbin really quickly. he’s a cute guy. the short one with the chubby cheeks. why do you ask?”

 

seokjin clasps his hand around jaehwan’s, “well… yoongi-sshi reminds me of someone.”

 

“oh? who?” 

 

for a moment, seokjin thinks he said too much, because he doesn’t really have an answer. but then his phone rings, his eyes opening at the sound of the generic ringtone filling the room, kyungsoo’s name and profile picture flashing on the screen, the choice of the red or the green.

 

seokjin, moves away from jaehwan, grabbing his phone off the counter. 

 

“i don’t know,” he says to jaehwan who leans back into the couch, and then seokjin looks back at his phone screen, the ringtone finally disappearing as he picks up. 

 

“i don’t really know.” he repeats, but it sounds like a lie.

 

*

 

jaehwan looks down at his watch, “it’s almost 6, didn’t kyungsoo call you about that dinner?”

 

seokjin stands up and stretches, “yeah, i guess i gotta go now.”

 

jaehwan smiles at him, picking seokjin’s coat off the couch. seokjin thanks him with a smile, and jaehwan’s hands fall back at his side, it is quiet except for the rustling of clothes.

 

he tucks his phone in his pockets, and jaehwan follows him out of the room to the door, and jaehwan opens it for him. 

 

seokjin waves goodbye and he’s one foot out the door when jaehwan says, “jin-ah.”

 

he turns around and jaehwan’s there, hands tucked in his pockets, eyes piercing into seokjin’s soul with an emotion seokjin’s not sure he can read. jaehwan takes a few steps forward. hesitation in every step, teeth biting his lips.

 

he stops. a foot right above the ground before he shuffles back, smiling faintly, “nevermind. i- uh, i forgot my train of thought. have fun at the restaurant.”

 

it is only a year later that seokjin finally understands. 

 

*

 

“hey jinnie-ah,” yixing says, waving at him at the entrance of the restaurant, “made it here… um.. without fans?”

 

seokjin smiles, and nods and yixing brightens. seokjin thinks out of all of china line, tao and yixing have it the worst mainly because they’re not the fastest learners, they’re not like kris or luhan, so they have to go through everyday with extra practice and diligence to be able to just communicate with their own bandmates. 

 

somedays, yixing stumbles into seokjin’s room, and teaches him mandarin with his changsha accent, thick and unwielding and seokjin takes time to observe the string of words that so comfortably leave yixing’s mouth, notices yixing’s brighter smile and energy. and it’s almost heartbreaking, how quick the personality change is when the language switches back to korean.

 

seokjin walks along with him, side by side, “you didn’t have to wait for me, hyung.”

 

yixing looks back at him, like a deer caught in the headlights before he smiles, dimples protruding. “but i wanted to.”

 

*

 

days like these, it is loud and ruckus and chaotic even in this little private room they booked for all thirteen of them. it’s loud and they’re probably going to be scolded by their manager the next day but for today, they can let loose and let their off-tune singing fill the room as the smell of beef and kimchi floats around. this a night where all thirteen of them can relax and forget about cameras and spotlights, about how to act on stage and off stage. 

 

a blushing waitress comes up to them with a pen and paper in hand, and they pass it around the table, each member occupying a little space. when it’s seokjin’s turn to sign it, he draws a heart around his name and jongdae who is sitting beside him laughs.

 

“you forgot to put the ‘exo’ in it, seokjin.”

 

“hm?” and seokjin looks down, spotting all his other member’s signatures with the words ‘exo’s’ written above their signature. he frowns, and wonders how he could’ve forgotten something as simple as that.

 

seokjin passes it to jongdae, “thanks jongdae, i forgot.”

 

jongdae smiles and shrugs his shoulders, taking the pen and paper off seokjin’s hands, “you forgot you were in exo, huh?”

 

it comes out as a joke, and it’s nothing more than that.

 

*

 

the waitress, seokjin sees, is quite beautiful. there’s something familiar about the way she smiles, dimples flickering every time her mouth moves, almost like yixing, but at the same time, not quite like yixing, he can’t really figure it out. he can see chanyeol trying to talk to her, even though seokjin was sure they weren’t allowed to date, not yet - but some of them still try their best anyways. she smiles politely, thanking chanyeol for the autograph and chanyeol smiles back, brightly, before tilting his head and asking,

 

“so, noona, who’s your bias in exo?”

 

subconsciously, seokjin looks away. she doesn’t seem to be the one to bias seokjin, not when she was a noona, it’s either maknae line or hyung line, all of which don’t include seokjin himself. even if she were to bias a ninety-two liner, she has sunshine line to look at.

 

“ah. um. i like… my bias is jin.”

 

seokjin stills, kimchi just inches from his mouth, ready to be devoured. jongdae nudges him, and winks, “seokjin-ah, never knew you attracted such beautiful noonas.” and the girl blushes and seokjin looks down, hiding away a smile that’s bursting to jump out. jongdae’s smile widens, whispering, “come on, go talk to her, you’re her bias!”

 

but a hand finds it’s way to seokjin’s knee just as he was about to stand up to talk to the girl. it’s kyungsoo, who smiles and nods toward the girl, yet his eyes are looking at seokjin, hand tapping lightly on seokjin’s knee. be careful, kyungsoo says without opening his mouth, don’t do something i wouldn’t do.

 

and seokjin stands up, smiling lightly at kyungsoo who’s shoulders relax at the gesture, moving his hands back to his chopsticks, continuing to eat like nothing happened. seokjin moves toward the girl and they use the extra cushions, sitting down near the closed door of the room.

 

the girl smiles, and seokjin is once again, struck by how familiar she seems, her features like a mirror to someone he doesn’t know.

 

“hi,” she says, “i’m.. i’m jung jiwoo… and i’m a big fan of you guys.”

 

she says this not with the enthusiasm seokjin receives at fan-meetings, but with a composed air, even though her blush still stains her cheeks, she holds herself in a way that was admirable, she holds herself in a way that seokjin has seen the snsd sunbaenims do, with confidence and with allurance. 

 

he bows slightly, “hello noona, thank you for being a fan of us.”

 

jiwoo laughs, her shoulders shaking and smile as wide as the ocean, “don’t be so polite, i should be thanking you for coming here today, or else i wouldn’t have met you all, or you, seokjin-sshi specifically.”

 

seokjin bites his lips slightly, “please, just call me seokjin. i’m flattered noona likes us so much, and i’m proud to be your bias. i’m curious though, what made you like us?” what made you like me so much, hangs in the air unsaid but jiwoo catches it, when her smile dims, just a bit.

 

“i wasn’t really into kpop, especially not into people so.. young. i don’t mean it in a bad way! it’s just i thought i’d get along with groups like cnblue, 2pm and snsd, because of their age. but i.. uh, i got into you guys when my little brother, he’s an idol too and he debuted recently into this group called bangtan sonyeondan. have you heard of them?”

 

he nods, curiosity seeping into his mind. is it yoongi? does yoongi have an older sister, or is it jimin, the one jaehwan mentioned? but from memory, yoongi doesn’t resemble jiwoo, and from all that seokjin has seen of jimin, he doesn’t seem like her either. so maybe it was someone else, someone he doesn’t know.

 

“yeah, he’s always talking about you and exo whenever he calls home, or whenever he texts me, it’s kind of endearing, it’s always ‘jin-hyung this’ or ‘jin-hyung’ that and so i was curious, i’ve only been a fan since recently because after hearing my little brother talk so much about you, i decided to take a look. you trained for so many years, and i seen some of the fancams, i guess, you… you would make a good actor one day.” 

 

she trails off, biting her lips nervously, and seokjin doesn’t ask what she means by that, “and well, you guys, regardless of age, have worked so hard, and i should know, my brother has told me all about trainees… you guys obviously had it harder, since sm is known for being… a bit strict and you’ve been pulled out of middle school to start training. i think it’s amazing, how you guys have worked so hard and come to where you are now, today.” 

 

(he calls me hyung, seokjin wonders, do i know any of them that well for them to call me hyung?

 

do i?

 

seokjin mentally shakes his head.

 

i don’t.)

 

jiwoo smiles, fingering the paper of signatures in her hands, “if you don’t mind, could you write an extra copy for my brother? he talks a lot about you and exo, and if you ever meet him, keep this between me and you but he... he talks about you as if he knows you... really well i might say. i guess he watches a lot of your groups interviews. yeah- for this extra copy, could you write him something motivational? he’s been a bit down ever since debut, and he won’t tell me about it but… i hope i didn’t bother you with this or anything, but i really appreciate if you do this for my brother. he’d really like it, i think.”

 

seokjin does what seokjin does best, he smiles, and grabs chanyeol’s bag on the side, taking out a stack of sticky notes. chanyeol always has them along with him just in case a sudden idea for a song, or anything he needs to remember pops up, and seokjin laughs slightly at chanyeol’s indignant ‘hey!’ even though it was all bark but no bite.

 

jiwoo hands him the pen and seokjin eyes the heart shaped sticky note, then back at the stack he had in his hand, a bright yellow square, and he puts the yellow one back in, taking out the heart shaped one. 

 

“what’s your brother’s name?”

 

“jung hoseok. but he goes by j-hope, on stage.”

 

seokjin decides to use the stage name, because he wasn’t too familiar with this jung hoseok anyways, and he writes down, ‘thank you for being a fan of exo! i hope you continue to support us and i hope your group becomes successful! hang on in there!’

 

this time, he doesn’t forget to sign it with the ‘exo’ on top.

 

*

 

seokjin had considered getting jiwoo’s number, because she seemed like she would understand him, and she didn’t seem all that bad either. she was smart and extremely kind, seokjin had felt no romantic attraction to her, but he thinks she would make a good friend to talk to.

 

although seokjin couldn’t risk anything by giving her his number or contact info, no matter how much he wanted to, jiwoo did leave him her kkt, shrugging slightly when he gives her a questioning stare, “i know kpop idols won’t give out their contact information to people they’ve just met, especially to fans so i’m giving mine to you. i won’t tell the world, i just want to get to know you, as a friend. your choice to talk to me, i’ll always be available anyways. thank you for this lovely night, my lips are sealed.” she smiles, “my boss is probably going to kill me for spending so much time with you guys and not working, but hey, it was worth it, so, yeah, thanks seokjin.”

 

jiwoo bows, and rushes out of the room. when he gets back to his seat, jongdae winks at him and kyungsoo only smiles, wrinkling his nose at seokjin’s plate of food, “you talked for so long, your food got cold. want my piece? it’s right off the griller.”

 

seokjin thanks him, humming happily as he stuffs the piece of meat into his mouth, and junmyeon who sits directly in front of him leans in, “did she give you her kkt?”

 

there’s concern etched upon junmyeon’s face and seokjin knows what it means, he’s memorized it because it looks just like their manager who had first laid out the rules to them. clear and precise and seokjin knows junmyeon has everything down pat, after all, he was the leader. seokjin nods, “she’s the sister of j-hope from bangtan sonyeondan.”

 

junmyeon’s eyebrows scrunch together and his posture falls back, before shaking his head and smiling at seokjin lightly, “you know the rules as well as i do jinnie, i’m sure you know what i mean.”

 

it’s times like these that seokjin feels the leader aura just flowing from junmyeon, and even though he’s all smiles, there is a warning, a legitimate one at that, in between his words. seokjin smiles back, “of course i do hyung.” 

 

junmyeon leans back, and at the end of the table, seokjin hears sehun’s voice, “let’s take a selfie!”

 

they all lean in close together and seokjin does his signature peace sign, lips quirked to one side, and he tilts his head in, close to the food so the camera can capture jongdae and the others behind him.

 

“what should the caption be?”

 

“we are one!” luhan shouts out enthusiastically, before yifan nudges him slightly in the ribs to which luhan replies with a small smile, a bit sad, a bit tired.

 

everyone else agrees happily, returning shortly to their own world. seokjin is the only one that notices the two, sitting together, hushed, tucked away in their little world talking about who knows what. but seeing the sullen look on yifan’s face, seokjin isn't sure he wants to find out.

 

*  
  


he opens his kkt, types in the username, and presses, add.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as we further into this story, there will be girl x jin interaction. is jin entirely gay in this fic? no. as said by my lovely friend melanie, aka epistolic, there needs to be better representation of females in fics. and i'm going to be blunt here, thank you all for supporting this fic but in this, there will be girl x jin interaction be it platonic or romantic. i'm not going to just centre it as an all-male world. also, i'm not going to sugarcoat the industry either. i will not incorporate any explicit mention of rape or sexual harassment but please understand that this kpop industry isn't innocent, not at all. the future chapters will address these things, but not explicitly mention of sexual harassment.. more like what they do have to face. faking it, acting, etc. so uh. yeah. if you don't like reading these things, then i'm extremely sorry but you might not want to read the next chapter update. i'm thankful for you guys supporting me, and for these kudos and comments, but please understand that this is the direction i'm planning to take my fic in. if you do not like it, then i'm sincerely sorry.
> 
> (endgame will be yoonjin. there will be more yoonjin. there will also be jin x girl interactions, although they won't be centered upon, either short excerpts or a page of dialogue, there will be mention, they will be part of the story. also there will be, in the future on this rocky ride to yoonjin, kyungsoo x jin, and jaehwan x jin. maybe a bit of sandeul x jin and.. bts x jin. cause i love jin. yaaah)
> 
> thank you. ah that sounded so serious... aish. anyways; happy holidays! happy new years !! so consider this as my gift for y'all for new years. have fun on jan 1!! whatever you're doing <3


	9. lamb skewers and fuck ups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "this is how life works," hoseok says, "i guess."
> 
> "well then life really must hate me." 
> 
> hoseok shrugs, "what you said was uncalled for."
> 
> yoongi sighs, shaking his head slowly, "yeah. it was."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there's a tiny bit of fluff in here because i was listening to b1a4's a lie (sooooo goood) and then my playlist hit me with seventeen's very nice... followed up by mamamoo's um ah oh yeah... so.. yeah.
> 
> scraped this up in like a few hours, so if you see typos, either point them out or ignore them because i'll doublecheck this later and fix it,, sobs,, please bare with me if there's too many typos. i honestly am drained but writing inspiration hit me too late at night yesterday... at least it's a sunday and my friends want nothing to do with me (lol no they love me but come on, sunday's are not for late night parties) so here i am writing this to y'all in my pajamas, drinking tea.
> 
> enjoy~ for music, please listen to the song of this chapter: a lie - b1a4
> 
> (also this chapter is dedicated to chenelle who keeps sending me these gifs about me "playing her heart". i'm not. [side eyes] also dedicated to zeph who is a masochist and 100% in this for the jinkook, there's not toooooo much but enjoy!)

 

because there’s now six of them, the dorm has split up into two for each room. yoongi is in a room with jeongguk, hoseok is with namjoon, and taehyung with jimin. when the manager announces it, hoseok pats yoongi’s knees sympathetically and goes off to help namjoon from destroying every single thing in sight.

 

yoongi brings his things into the chosen room, the one he used to share with seokjin, and flops down on the nearest bed, stretching out his arms and letting out a small yawn. jeongguk comes in a few minutes later, his entrance so quiet that yoongi wouldn’t have heard him if it weren’t for the quiet “hyung” floating in the air hesitantly. yoongi turns to face him and jeongguk looks nervous, eyes flickering warily around the room, almost like a lost puppy. 

 

“hyung…” jeongguk starts, “can i have the bed by the window?”

 

yoongi lifts himself up, staring at jeongguk before smiling slightly, “yeah, sure.”

 

the bed by the window is seokjin’s. was seokjin’s. it’s the bed that jeongguk always crashed in at an ungodly hour to sleep on, complaining that namjoon’s snores were too loud and that seokjin’s bed was much more comfier than anything else here. those are the lighter cases, but sometimes, jeongguk is too homesick and too emotionally drained, that he’s barely able to work out coherent words, the streaks of tears and puffy red eyes already speaking for him.

 

then, those nights are when seokjin shuffles over without questions or complaints, and jeongguk slips in, a small word of gratitude echoing between the walls. yoongi was almost always awake to hear their midnight conversations, when jeongguk was willing to let out his concerns and seokjin was willing to listen. yoongi would listen with his back to them, not even daring to move a muscle, not when jeongguk was talking about things a kid his age shouldn’t have the misfortune to experience. 

 

yoongi lies down on his bed, and watches as jeongguk places his things on the side before sitting on the bed, patting the pillow lightly before lying down. they remain silent for a few minutes, just shallow breathing as they both stare up at the ceiling. the ceiling fan whirrs, on and on, until that’s all yoongi hears, instead of the heartbeat drumming in his ears. 

 

“this bed isn’t as comfortable as before,” jeongguk says, “i don’t like it.”

 

something stops in him. yoongi’s palms suddenly turn sweaty, like he was nervous about something he doesn’t even know.

 

“it’s the same bed as before, jeongguk.”

 

jeongguk doesn’t respond, and yoongi suddenly doesn’t feel as tired as before, so he gets up and opens the door to leave until,

 

“it’s not the same as before...”

 

yoongi doesn’t turn around, hand still on the doorknob, his irritation showing through the words he clenches between his teeth, “jeongguk, it’s just a bed.”

 

“it’s just a bed,” jeongguk echoes and yoongi turns around to see the younger’s dazed glance, something shiny reflecting in his eyes. jeongguk traces a hand over the side of the bed, smoothing out the wrinkles, hanging his head in defeat. yoongi can’t see his face now but jeongguk’s shoulders are shaking, hands scrunching up the bed sheets in a deathly grip. he shakes, and shakes, trembling in quiet sniffles.

 

“it’s just a bed,” jeongguk wails, half scream and half whisper, “it’s just a bed.” 

 

and yoongi slips out the door, closing it behind him.

 

he pretends that he doesn’t hear the sniffles turning into sobs.

 

*

 

“you’re supposed to comfort him you know,” is all hoseok says when he sees yoongi curled up on the couch.

 

yoongi rolls over to face hoseok and he almost wants to laugh, “how the fuck can i do that when i can’t even comfort myself?”   
  


hoseok sighs, shaking his head, “i miss him as much as you do, and so does namjoon, and taehyung and the rest of us. but we promised to not let that interfere with our stages and debut, right?”

 

“he’s gone,” is the only thing that yoongi musters out of himself.

 

hoseok stills, before crouching down into a sitting position on the floor, his head leaning into the curve of his hands. 

 

“yeah,” hoseok murmurs, “yeah he is.”

 

*

 

in all honesty, yoongi was not made to be the eldest of the group. he never needed to be, he’s always been the second oldest. the second-in-command. he wasn’t the one that was supposed to comfort them, give them reassurance when he himself didn’t have any. yoongi couldn’t do that, he couldn’t replace kim seokjin like that. (but he has.)

 

the thing about it all, about seokjin being the eldest in this group, was that seokjin had almost zero experience with being a hyung. he was raised in a family of two sons, him being the youngest, and he went to an university where all his classmates were his seniors. seokjin had to deal with kids as young as jeongguk in his trainee days, watch as every single one of them cried and cried, and seokjin had to adjust to taking them under his wing, taking the people he was supposed to debut with and take care of them like the eldest hyung was supposed to do.

 

namjoon’s the leader, but namjoon was namjoon. he was a great leader, and everyone leaned on him for support and authority. yet, sometimes, even namjoon crumbles a bit inside. like in 2016, when namjoon had been accused of plagiarism and misogyny, a hashtag on twitter trended worldwide accusing him of stealing and copying. namjoon didn’t come out of his room for weeks, and even when he did, it was to hole himself in his studio. those few weeks, jeongguk had slept with seokjin and namjoon occupied the whole of the room. 

 

yoongi had saw him scrolling through the twitter feed, scrolling through the damned hashtag one night when yoongi woken up to get a glass of water. the door was open and yoongi had watched namjoon turn on his phone just to go on twitter. his shoulders were shaking, and yoongi has never really seen namjoon cry that hard, not even when they were trainees and when namjoon was stressing over if they were actually going to debut or not, not when hyosang, hungchul, and seungjun all left for another company - another dream.

 

the next day, seokjin had forced himself into jeongguk’s and namjoon’s rooms. he was carrying fruits and a glass of water. seokjin entered and shut the door behind him. the rest of bts had waited outside, no one dared to really make a sound. namjoon’s crying from the other side of wall made up for all of that noise. after an hour, hoseok weaseled his way into the room, and then yoongi followed suit. 

 

all of hyung line was sitting on namjoon’s bed, seokjin holding namjoon’s hand while hoseok wrapped an arm around namjoon’s shoulders. when yoongi had entered, they said nothing but only shuffled closer until all of them were hugging in a tight embrace. jimin, taehyung, and jeongguk made their way in a minute later, also joining in on the hug.

 

they were bts. forever ot7.

 

*

 

“it’s all your fault.” is what yoongi hears the moment he steps in the room. he was all prepared to comfort a crying boy, but life just never gives him what he expects.

 

“what?”

 

jeongguk turns around to stare at yoongi, shaking his head slowly, "it's all your fault."

 

something hangs in the air, something tells him that jeongguk was talking about what yoongi thinks he’s talking about. jeongguk knows. and jeongguk probably hates him.

 

yoongi bites down on his tongue. because it was his fault, no matter how much he denied it. instead, he smiles, awkward and fake and impatient, "for what?"

 

for a moment, jeongguk looks like he's about to cry, but years in the idol industry have shaped him into an actor, one that didn't quite know how to act, but did it perfectly on stage. so instead, jeongguk sneers, eyes puffy and red. he’s already cried too much, and yoongi knows jeongguk’s pride prohibits him from crying in front of someone else.

 

"we're in a universe where jin-hyung is in exo. if you didn't say the shit you did, bangtan would be normal. we would all be happy. how could you? how could you fucking do that to him when he probably loved y-”

 

“language.” yoongi chides, though he doesn’t really give a rat’s ass about it. not at all. jeongguk’s right, and yoongi’s tired.

 

jeongguk softens, “hyung,” he says as his voice cracks, “i just miss him.”

 

yoongi closes his eyes, leaning against the door.

 

“me too.”

 

*

 

“i’m tired of always eating ramen,” namjoon mumbles.

 

taehyung nods in agreement, eyeing his cup o’ noodle with distaste.

 

yoongi sighs, only shoveling more ramen into his mouth. hoseok, by his side, stills. hoseok used to be seokjin’s cooking partner, that was the honorary title that seokjin had bestowed on a gleeful hoseok, hoseok and seokjin had a closer relationship than the camera would often display, they were usually the strictest in the dorms, but also great friends at the same time.

 

namjoon frowns slightly, pushing the content in his bowl around, “what if we scrape some money together? treat ourselves to some meat?”

 

hoseok hums, “my sister works at a bbq restaurant over by teheran-ru,  maybe she’ll even give us a discount. the place is nearby.”

 

jeongguk shares a look with yoongi, “lamb skewers?”

 

there’s a pause, but hoseok turns to them, smiling widely, the most happy yoongi’s seen him these past months.

 

“obviously.”

 

* 

 

_ jeongguk grips seokjin’s arm, pleading with his soft, round, doe-like eyes that almost everyone had a hard time denying. except seokjin when he was tired, apparently. _ __  
  


_ “jeongguk-ah, let’s go tomorrow. It’s already five right now, we’re having a full family dinner here in the dorms, okay?” _

 

_ “but.. hyung! my discount coupon expires tomorrow!” _

 

_ there’s a long, drawn-out sigh, “you should’ve used it earlier then.” _

 

_ “we had promotions though… hyung! come on, please?” _

 

_ yoongi looks up from his phone, “what are you all arguing about?” _

 

_ seokjin turns to him, a long, empty, dreadful sigh, “lamb skewers.” _

 

_ yoongi purses his lips, eyes widening, “lamb skewers?” at seokjin’s stare, yoongi leans forward, a smile latching onto his lips, “hyung. lamb skewers.” _

 

_ jeongguk nods furiously and seokjin turns to look at the two of them, before pressing two fingers between his eyebrows, rubbing it slowly. after a bit, he stands up, grabbing the coupon from jeongguk’s hands, smiling softly. he throws on his coat and calls out the rest of the group and jeongguk tilts his head head in confusion. _

 

_ “lamb skewers?” _

 

_ seokjin turns to him, slipping on his shoes. he smiles slowly. _

 

_ “of course.” _

 

*

 

their manager takes them to the korean bbq restaurant, pulling out his wallet and sighing lightly.

 

“here,” hobum says as he hands the bills to namjoon, “consider this a treat from management, we’re sorry you guys couldn’t have eaten better these days.”

 

namjoon blinks, “hyung… are you sure? we scraped some money and-” 

 

“take it, you guys worked hard.”

 

“thanks hobum-hyung,” jimin says excitedly as he opens the car door, “ah, will eating too much meat make me fat?”

 

hobum reaches over and pinches jimin’s cheeks, “i like you well-fed jiminnie, go eat. don’t tell management i said that though. do try and work out tomorrow. but this is treat night, have some fun.”

 

“thanks hyung!” they chorus as they stumble out of the car and towards the entrance of the restaurant.

 

namjoon goes up to open the glass door, before he looks up and jumps back. yoongi rushes forward, and the glass door opens revealing kim jongin, zhang yixing and oh sehun. exo’s dance line. 

 

they all hastily bow to them, and yoongi sees that jongin has dragged aside hoseok and jimin to talk. jimin was friends with jongin back in their other… universe, so they should get along fine. hoseok is smiling along, but his eyes scatter around like he’s looking for something else.

 

the door opens again, and out comes the rest of exo. chanyeol stops in front of yoongi, greeting him warmly, and chanyeol hands him his kkt before walking to namjoon, probably with the same offer. it’s not really chanyeol’s fault that yoongi couldn’t supply anything other than a smile and nod in the conversation, not when seokjin was standing just meters away.

 

it seems the rest of them have all taken notice, jeongguk especially, peering at seokjin with wide eyes. 

 

seokjin doesn’t look too much different from the magazines, he’s still smiling widely, his body engulfing kyungsoo as he talks happily to minseok. his hair a beautiful shade of purple, covered with a black cap, a brown sweater draped over his body. he looks beautiful and yoongi just wants to hold him. feel his presence and warmth like how kyungsoo is doing right now.

 

taehyung goes up to him first, and yoongi knows that boy has always been the most courageous amongst them. the rest of them kind of dance around taehyung, hoseok casually sliding up next to taehyung and bowing to seokjin. yoongi follows suit and seokjin’s face lights up.

 

“hi! oh you’re yoongi-sshi! we met at that music show!” seokjin smiles happily, before turning to taehyung and hoseok, “and you must be jhope-sshi, right? your sister works at this restaurant too, we just talked!”

 

“it’s jung hoseok,” hoseok corrects, “nice to meet you seokjin-sunbae.”

 

seokjin waves it off, dismissing it, “no need to be so formal, call me seokjin. or hyung, i guess. i’m a ‘92 liner.”

 

then seokjin turns to taehyung, a relaxed smile on his lips, “i don’t think we’ve met.”

 

taehyung smiles his signature boxy, wide, grin, “i’m kim taehyung. also known as v.”

 

seokjin nods, “right, you’re bangtan’s vocalist and visual! ah, no wonder. you kind of look a bit like baekhyun too.” 

 

taehyung, to his credit, does not falter in his smile but something dims in him, just a bit.

 

“yeah, the visual of bangtan sonyeondan,” he laughs hollowly, “that’s me.”

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see, chen. that wasn't bad. 
> 
> also @ zeph: dearest, i'll make it up to you in like... the next chapters. more jinkook. yay. :-)
> 
> (also since my dead self sucks at replying to all of your lovely comments, i will start doing that. you're all too sweet and for me leaving you guys hanging makes me slightly guilty... so if any of you have questions, do not hesitate to ask!!)


	10. gone but still here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he thinks about how being a hyung feels so wrong, but oddly, so natural to him that it came like a sixth sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also this chapter is like. nowhere as angsty as planned. this is just word vomit. i'm sorrrrrryyy ~~~ ideas have been horrible these past days. i'm preparing for smth big in february so i'm going be to busy for the last week of january to the first two weeks of february. so i want to update this as fast as i can before i'm off writing cases and having a hectic schedule again for the next three weeks..
> 
> please enjoy~ ^__^
> 
> (also, some ppl really liked my fic rec segment from chpt 8!! so i'm doing another fic rec here; this time it's [rattle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8686042) by saturnaris 
> 
> honestly, it's such a cynically, well-written, glorious, dark-ish, greedy, manipulating jinkook. the trigger warnings are tagged in the fic so it might not be everyone's thing, but it's such a great read. like the characterization dann writes never fails to make me stunned and mesmerized. it's honestly such a sick and horribly dark jinkook dynamic but so beautifully written. please check it out ahhh ;; so good)

after encountering bts at the bbq place, the rest of them all went back to the dorms. seokjin brings out his phone and looks at new contact he now has stored in his kakaotalk. he stares, finger hovering over the name.

 

**[9:20 pm] kim seokjin**

 

hi, is this jiwoo-noona?

 

**[9:23] j. jiwoo**

 

(^--^) hello! this is jiwoo~

is this jin-sshi?

 

**[9:24 pm] kim seokjin**

 

hi noona

listen, i added you on here because i trust you and..

sm is really strict so i’m not even suppose to be talking to you

but i felt like i trusted you

ah, so please don’t tell anyone about this?

about you knowing me

 

**[9:24 pm] jung jiwoo (noona)**

 

of course! this is just between me and you

ahh i’m flustered you think so highly of me (⁎⁍̴̛ᴗ⁍̴̛⁎)

my brother would combust probably, he’s such a fanboy

you met him earlier right?

 

**[9:25 pm] kim seokjin**

 

hoseok-sshi and i met after the restaurant

he’s really nice, and you guys really look like each other

ψ(｀∇´)ψ

 

**[9:25 pm] jung jiwoo (noona)**

 

he always hated his smile

be nice to him, please.

 

**[9:26 pm] kim seokjin**

 

of course noona

i promise

 

**[9:26 pm] jung jiwoo (noona)**

 

thank you

 

*

 

seokjin sends her an emoticon, as she bids him goodnight. he decides to go to sleep too, and it’s midway through brushing his teeth when a blast of notifications flicker on his phone screen.

 

*

 

**[9:34 pm] hoseok**

 

hey

is this seokjin-hyung?

*sunbae

sorry got too comfy there haha

 

**[9:34 pm] kim seokjin**

 

that’s me!! you don’t need to call me sunbae, hyung is fine (=^ェ^=)

 

**[9:35 pm] bighit’s jung hoseok**

 

okay :)

i heard you talked to my sister?

  


*

 

**[9:36 pm] seagull**

 

seokjin-sunbaenim?

 

**[9:37 pm] kim seokjin**

 

do i know you?

 

**[9:38 pm] seagull**

 

oh

sorry

this is jeon jeongguk

from bts

 

**[9:38 pm] kim seokjin**

 

ah, the maknae right?

nice to meet you~

 

**[9:39 pm] bighit’s jeon jeongguk**

 

yeah

nice to meet you too

 

*

 

**[9:35 pm] taetae**

 

jin-hyung?

i’m taehyung from bts!

 

**[9:38 pm] pjiminnie**

 

i’m park jimin!

is this seokjin-sunbae right from exo?

jongin gave me your kkt ^-^

 

**[9:41 pm] namjoon daily**

 

hey, it’s namjoon from bts

chanyeol-hyung gave me your kkt…

 

*

 

he smiles at the conversations and texts, each time uncovering new things about the members of bts. it feels natural to be talking so easily like them. talking to them was refreshing, even if they were his dongsaengs, and his hoobaes, seokjin doesn’t feel the need to be overly formal, even if they’ve only met a few times. there was something about it all that had seokjin feeling relaxed, it was like he already knew them, in a sense.

 

to them, he is the eldest hyung, even older than min yoongi himself, who seokjin had found out to be the hyung in their group. this is a role that seokjin has never been confronted with. exo’s maknae, sehun, is only two years younger than him, but jeongguk is a whole five years. which is startling, because he’s not used to the onslaught of “hyung” appearing text after text. there’s only three people he hears the word “hyung” from in all of exo, and to have a whole group call him that takes a lot getting used to.

 

seokjin’s not sure if he’s supposed to feel happy about it. because, in a perspective, he’s not. he likes being the middle of the batch with hyungs that dote on him. this is what he’s used to and this is what he’s comfortable with. seokjin doesn’t think he’s grown up enough, to be like minseok and yixing, to take care of the younger ones. although there are bound to be dongsaengs in this industry, like the sm rookies, he doesn’t like being the eldest. he doesn’t like being the one in charge, the one that is responsible for so much.

 

(sometimes, what you’re used to, isn’t always the best for you.)

 

maybe this is why he gets uncomfortable, albeit a little proud, when others start calling him sunbaes and they rush up to him with stars in their eyes. he doesn’t bask in the spotlight like the baekhyun and chanyeol does, because it feels wrong. it feels wrong to have so many trainees and future popstars rushing up to him, the words “sunbae” scattering here and there.

 

he’s too young for this, he doesn’t deserve any of this.

 

kyungsoo chides him as seokjin’s phone vibrates with each text, and seokjin mumbles an apology. he watches as kyungsoo turns his back to him on the bed, and seokjin grabs his phone, to take a seat on the couch in the living room, away from everyone else.

 

to his surprise, minseok is there, lying on one of the retaining couches with his phone in the air. when minseok notices him, he smiles in a greeting before returning back to his phone. seokjin smiles back, his phone still vibrating, possibly from taehyung’s spam of emoticons.

 

“someone’s busy,” minseok says, even though his eyes are still glued to his screen.

 

seokjin shakes his head, “no, it’s just the members from bangtan.”

 

“bangtan sonyeondan?”

 

“yeah.”

 

“you’re older than all of them.”

 

seokjin isn’t surprised minseok knows. out of all of them, it is minseok who is the most avid fan, watching debuts and m! countdown shows almost religiously, always the one to mouth the words to the song during a performance. this is why seokjin likes sitting next to him (and jongdae), minseok’s energy never fails to spread to him.

 

seokjin nods.

 

“how does it feel like being the hyung to so many dongsaengs, jinnie?”

 

seokjin curls his legs in on the couch, fingers pausing right above the keyboard, watching the hovering bubbles flash, indicating that hoseok was typing.

 

“well, for starters, i know how you feel now.”

 

minseok laughs, lips curling up so beautifully. seokjin stares and smiles. minseok deserves more than he gets, and seokjin knows of the loneliness that digs at his heart, the line distribution still a touchy subject. seokjin may be a hyung to bts, but he is a dongsaeng to minseok, and minseok deserves more than just respect based on age.

 

somewhere, somehow, seokjin knows this feeling of sadness. knows this feeling of when you’re not loved as much as bandmates, and this feeling of being disregarded. he knows it, and feels it ache in his bones and his heart. even though he never really had to struggle as hard as minseok, seokjin doesn’t know why he can relate to something so unbearably sad, when he has yet to experience it.

 

(or maybe he has, when his mother talks to her friends, unable to conjure up anything to talk about regarding seokjin, because there was nothing meaningful to talk about. her friends could be bragging about how their children have accomplished yet another feat, while his mother can only respond with the fact that seokjin’s still in sm, training for a dream that she’s not sure he can achieve.

 

but he did, didn’t he?

 

he did, but it feels wrong. it’s an itch that prods at him, a mosquito bite that glares at him as it only swells with size.)

 

he’s not minseok, but there’s just something - and seokjin can’t quite understand it - that connects them, and strengthens their bond. maybe it’s their love for coffee, or their tendency to be quiet around in the house or their instinct to always look picture-perfect in front of the camera. maybe it’s all of that, but seokjin wouldn’t know.

 

now that’s he looking at minseok, seokjin’s sure that he can never be a hyung worth looking up to.

 

(but he is.)

 

*

 

_a few months ago, they had all crowded together over minseok’s laptop, all of them agreeing to play the music video and watch it together. minseok had landed a lead role in a music video, sang by a girl group, lovelyz, member called jin whom the other members have teased seokjin about, since they had both shared the same stage name._

 

_they had all watched it together. and after the video stopped playing, the screen fading into black, everyone was stunned silent. it was the love story of a blind girl and a pianist. but happy endings don’t exist and everything tumbled down._

 

_luhan was the first to speak, voice echoing against the walls, “that’s sad.”_

 

_minseok looks at luhan, fingers itching at his sides, then he looks away, a smile on his lips once again._

 

_“yeah,” his voice cracks but barely anyone hears it, “she is.”_

 

_the next morning, seokjin had showered him in praises, just like jongdae who was giddily jumping in his seat._

 

_“hyung, that was amazing... the plot and your acting! it was really great.”_

 

_minseok smiled, but not with his eyes._

 

_“thank you seokjin-ah. do you want a cup of coffee?”_

 

_minseok had bags under his eyes, a sorrow seokjin couldn’t yet understand._

 

*

 

he treads back to his room,  after minseok went off to bed. seokjin uses his phone as a flashlight, wandering around, careful not to trip and startle kyungsoo. his roommate’s already asleep, and seokjin tucks himself in his bed, his phone charging on the tabletop.

 

a low drawl of a vibration reverberates throughout the room. it’s short, and seokjin can see the shadows of the bright screen of the phone, flashing off the walls. he tucks himself deeper in his bed and he closes his eyes.

 

he’ll check tomorrow.

 

*

 

**[11:11 pm] min genius**

 

hi jin-sunbaenim, this is min yoongi.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, comments + kudos are always heavily appreciated. [blows kisses]


	11. why do they leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "so your noona knows jin-hyung?"
> 
> "let's put it this way. she probably knows him better than we do, at this point."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it took me like a month to update so i'm sorry for the wait but here you are!! this chapter is kind of sloppy in terms of everything... but i hope you guys enjoy anyways. don't be afraid to point out any of my typos or mistakes bc i probably made A LOT hahah.
> 
> i was working on the fic i just wrote inspired by bts' spring day, aka bday present for nini so i had less time to get working on this. that, and the three weeks i was semi-traveling, mostly working. good to be back writing this ^^

 

 

_“we shouldn’t be doing this,” seokjin whispers as yoongi grazes his neck lightly, “we can’t do this.”_

 

_yoongi knows. known it since debut, known it as the filthiest part of the whole of the music industry. he doesn’t ask why, instead he lets his hand slip away, back to his side as the two of them lie on their pushed together beds._

 

_in a time like this, yoongi would say, “i know” and they’d change the topic, pick out a movie and turn off the lights as they huddle together under the covers. it’d be half an hour in and yoongi would fall asleep and seokjin would shut off the laptop, tucking both of them in bed. they’d fall asleep next to each other. this simple bit of contact is never enough, but it’s the only amount they’re allowed._

 

_in a time like this, yoongi should be following protocol, he’s suppose to nod his head and move on._

 

_sometimes, yoongi doesn’t follow protocol and that leads him to make the best mistakes._

 

_“we’re in our dorms hyung, no one will notice. no one would notice. everyone is out doing their own thing.”_

 

_yoongi tilts his head to sneak a glance at seokjin, who stares at the ceiling with wide and blank eyes. it’s quiet, and yoongi wants to fill the silence with something - anything._

 

_this time, yoongi moves towards seokjin, and seokjin turns to face yoongi. they lie like that, heavy breathing drifting across the room as yoongi’s eyes drift from seokjin’s eyes to his lips. his hand comes up to rest on seokjin’s cheek and the other closes his eyes, waiting._

 

_when yoongi presses his lips against seokjin, the other doesn’t move. they stay like that, lips molded together, soft and delicate, a simple light graze of the skin._

 

_there were no fireworks like usual, there were no lingering scents of beer and vodka, no heated passion and no time limit. they didn’t have to rush it through, they didn’t have to glance around with caution with the fear of being caught. no, this time, they didn’t have to do any of that, they didn’t have any of that._

 

_it was only a delicate, safe moment for the two of them. hiding in the covers of their dorms, no cameras, no fans and no people to judge what they do. they are, simply, yoongi and seokjin. together, that is all they are, but sometimes seokjin becomes jin and yoongi becomes suga. those times, they are not seokjin and yoongi anymore. those times, they are only manufactured images made to shine in the spotlight._

 

_the spotlight was not made for them, but yoongi has learned to adapt._

 

_they were young, so they were weak, and they would let their real emotions show through the times when they’re on stage, one too many times. seokjin and hoseok had always been the fastest at recovering, they always were the fastest to separate their stage persona from who they really were. little by little, the rest of bangtan had followed in perfecting this separation of emotions and behaviour. all they had to do was perform._

 

_those times, they have a image of the perfect reality._

 

_the fans would be screaming in delight for any skinship between members. they’d be screaming as seokjin hugs yoongi, tightly but at the same time, so gently. (as if yoongi would let go, and if he did, seokjin would let him.)_

 

_the fans would be screaming and the media wouldn’t be cursing at them for being different and the whole of bangtan wouldn’t lose their fame. everything would be perfect._

 

_“go to sleep yoongi-chii.”_

 

_*_

 

taehyung pops his head in the room, spotting jeongguk playing on his phone and yoongi with his eyes closed, headphones sitting neatly atop his head.

 

“dinner,” taehyung calls out, leaning forward on the door, rocking on his feet, “hoseok got his noona to bring us something special.”

 

“lamb skewers?” jeongguk questions, glancing excitedly at yoongi who smiles back.

 

“nah,” taehyung shakes his head, “she cooked it herself. or something.”

 

jeongguk jumps up in excitement, his phone dropping on the floor with a loud clang, he winces but recovers. “wow, we haven’t had homemade food since…” jeongguk stops, “...since forever.”

 

taehyung stares at jeongguk for a moment, and then looks back at yoongi who has yet to move an inch. he smiles, warm and relaxed, “yeah. come on, namjoon-hyung probably ate all of it already.”

 

*

 

namjoon leans in the back of his chair, sighing happily, “tell jiwoo-noona i said thanks, that was delicious.”  


hoseok grins, “of course, she’s the greatest.”

 

the rest of them nod along, before taehyung drags jimin and jeongguk away with the promise of a new anime and videogame, and it’s just the three of them sitting around the table in a comfortable silence.

 

“you know he texts noona sometimes?” hoseok asks, clearing up the silence.

 

“huh,” yoongi prods, “who?”

 

hoseok pulls out his phone, wiping the screen with his sleeve, “jin-hyung. noona gave him her kkt and he actually responded.”

 

namjoon frowns slightly, “but doesn’t sm have strict rules on the whole privacy thing?”

 

his answer is only a shrug, “yeah but i guess jin-hyung didn’t mind breaking it.”

 

“what did they talk about?” is the only question sitting in yoongi’s mouth.

 

another shrug.

 

hoseok stares at his phone, “something about how much she likes exo, and he said something about how he’s pretty happy in exo. and a little bit about us.”

 

namjoon shares a look with yoongi, before they both turn back to hoseok who just looks tired.

 

“what about us?”

 

hoseok leans back and cracks a smile, eyes darting to their debut photoshoot poster, the one with all six of them.

 

“how he felt like he knew all of us on a personal level, despite just meeting us.”

 

*

 

their manager hangs up the phone and rubs his temples. he sighs before turning around to face them, and the boys look on in confusion.

 

“you guys are going to be on music show champion with a bunch of sunbaes. there’s no way you guys will win anything so all in all, just be respectful to them and do your best, okay? bang pd-nim and i will talk about promotions and things later.”

 

jimin tilts his head to the side, a frown marring his lips, “which sunbae-nims?”

 

sejin crosses his arms, “exo, snsd, beast, sistar, the usual. sm is churning them out by the handful.”

 

yoongi exchanges a look with jeongguk, and jeongguk’s tight lips show that they’re thinking the same thing. they’re going to see seokjin again.

 

*

 

yoongi walks by, greeting the cameramen and the stylists, head turning round and round to see if he can catch a glimpse of seokjin. he sees the shade of purple under the flashing lights and yoongi is sure he looks like a mad man now but there’s nothing in him that can bring himself to care so he jumps out of passerby’s ways and makes his approach.

 

he stops, because the whispers from seokjin’s directions are borderlining yells and something in yoongi believes that he’s interrupting something private.

 

“what do you mean?” is seokjin’s voice, clear and loud and broken, desperate in a way. yoongi ducks behind a rack of clothes, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

 

junmyeon makes an appearance, hands running through his hair in frustration, “explain yifan. now.”

 

the tall man who’s back is towards yoongi, is presumably yifan. yifan hunches over, hands nervously playing with his shirt. tall, lanky, awkward. there is no power in his stance, and he looks defeated.

 

“i’m leaving. as in, leaving exo.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bg info for non-exo fans: kris of exo (aka wu yifan) leaves on may 2014, filing a lawsuit to sm entertainment for mistreatment. mostly for the fact that he was chinese bc sm has a notorious reputation for treating their korea line better than china line. as some of you may know, luhan leaves sm and later, so does tao. the remains of china line as of currently is just lay, aka yixing.


	12. we are one (minus one)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> seokjin thinks it over. what ot-12 really means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [disgruntled face] this chapter is a disappointment to me since i'm still trying to grasp my writing style, it's gonna be choppy and really... really weird. hope you enjoy nonetheless. i had to update since it's been a month so i just churned this out like, an hour ago. hehe.
> 
> probably lots of spelling errors. :( please ignore.

  


seokjin tips his head back so he can swallow the last bit of soju, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. he’s swinging the bottle back and forth, feet dangling on the side of his bed as he tries to be as quiet as possible, so not to be found out by kyungsoo, who’ll surely scold him. they’ve been restricted from anything addictive in their dorms, including alcohol and cigarettes. although, seokjin muses, that never stopped the rest of them from taking it.

 

(fans have been questioning yifan’s throaty voice, and so has the rest of exo. but a release was a release, and they needed that, as their popularity rose with every minute. junmyeon said nothing, and the rest of them did nothing.

 

maybe seokjin should’ve questioned it, why yifan needed a release in the first place.)

 

he takes another swig of the soju and he grimaces as it burns down his throat. sm entertainment has always been forceful to them when they were trainees, but that was to be expected from a company that trained out such talent like sm did on the daily. seokjin was used to it, he’s been training since middle school and he’s got the better end of the stick mostly because he’s been trained like this ever since day one.

 

though, seokjin thinks, maybe that’s why they treat him better. because he’s one of the idol babies, the idol born, and as jongdae likes to call it, the ones who’ve been born into a hellhole of perfection.

 

seokjin watches slightly as kyungsoo shuffles in his sleep, and he leans his head on the wall, ears pressed against it. he hears the loud but quiet murmurs of jongdae (that was jongdae, seokjin thinks, loud and brash and jumpy when the moment’s right, when he was on stage. but he was quiet, down to his bone, so timid and soft at the same time that it almost scares seokjin, how fast and fluid the transition is. it reminds seokjin of someone, but he’s not sure who.) and minseok, who were most likely conversing about yifan.

 

seokjin looks down at his empty soju container, and he tucks it under his bed in an empty shoe box. he closes his eyes in defeat and sinks himself down into his pillow.

 

*

 

junmyeon was angry, and that always scared seokjin because junmyeon has always been the eerily patient, albeit petty, type of person. when he was angry, people were on their toes, and the only person to really challenge that anger was yifan, who held the title of the leader of exo-m.

 

they were sitting around the table in the living room and everyone looked defeated. jongin and sehun looked like they wished to be everywhere but here and seokjin almost wanted to reach out to them for an embrace but the moment isn’t right.

 

yifan purses his lips and he stands up, looming over everybody like he always did. yixing tugs at the hem of yifan’s shirt and yifan softens, just a bit, while yixing murmurs something in chinese and tao bobs his head in agreement.

 

junmyeon grows impatient, yifan straightens his back and everyone else stays quiet.

 

“how long did you have this planned?” junmyeon asks, and yifan looks away.

 

“why didn’t you tell us about it?” minseok pipes up. yifan shakes his head, “you wouldn’t understand. you would’ve stopped me.”

 

seokjin finds his voice, after a bit, “you could’ve told us. we would’ve respected your choice. we’re family, aren’t we?”

 

yifan looks at seokjin and smiles, just a bit.

 

“yeah. we are.”

 

*

 

a few days after that, the members isolate themselves from each other, because they’ve never dealt with this before. they had multiple trainees leave them, seokjin had friends that had come and gone, from fear or from exhaustion, they have all left seokjin behind. but that wasn’t severe, that wasn’t when seokjin was always in their company, stuck with them in cozy dorms and with them for eventful dinners, that wasn’t heartbreaking, and that wasn’t exo.

 

seokjin feels empty.

 

he’s in the kitchen, late at night, again. he’s looking through the fridge, looking for the snacks minseok has always hid, maybe in the cupboard up front, or in the little cabinets to the side. minseok has always provided little snack stashes somewhere and seokjin has always found pleasure in looking for them.

 

or, seokjin was a stress eater. it’s a habit that he’s yet to control. that’s why he does eatjin segments sometimes, because he’s stressed and he’s tired and he needs an excuse for management in order to be able to just sit down and eat. they later force him to go to the gym and seokjin complies, because he’s the visual and he needs to be perfect.

 

(seokjin doesn’t really like the image they’ve given him. this perfect, untouchable, flower boy. seokjin doesn’t look like that, at least, seokjin’s not like that.)

 

he spots the bag of chips, lamb-skewer flavoured, and makes a move to grab them. the perfect companion to his lonely soju, hiding right under his bed.

 

there’s a quiet cough from behind him and seokjin turns around to come face to face with luhan. luhan looks tired, and the bags under his eyes makes seokjin want to cry. they were too young, weren’t they, to be dealing with this?

 

luhan smiles lightly at seokjin and he moves to the side to grab a glass of water.

 

seokjin wants to grab his bag of chips and move to the side so luhan is more comfortable. but a part of him wants to sit down and talk, because seokjin has never been as close to luhan as minseok was to luhan or like kyungsoo was to him.

 

“hey hyung,” seokjin says, mind on a completely different path than his actions, “i have soju. want some?” he holds up his bag of chips and gestures to his room.

 

*

 

luhan talks a lot. seokjin likes that about him, he’s quiet but talkative and so much friendlier than the image he gives off. seokjin takes another sip of his soju, and sighs.

 

“you know,” luhan starts, eyes shut and completely relaxed, “yifan has his reasons to leave. the whole sm korean, chinese treatment.”

 

seokjin knows. he just doesn’t want to hear it. hear how the very people that brought them to fame are continuously bringing them down. targeting china line specifically. hate and prejudice has no boundaries.

 

luhan continues, this time with a small sigh, “no wonder he needs to leave.”

 

“but aren’t we enough for him to stay?” seokjin asks, sincere hope building up in his heart because they are exo, they are one, they were resilient.

 

in the silence, in the bottle of soju, seokjin finds his answer.

 

* 

 

before he goes to sleep, he makes a wish. and then he finds himself staring at his kkt, staring at his contacts. eyes sifting through junghwan's emojis, jaehwan's selcas and yoongi's one word texts. he should be going to one of his hyungs for this, maybe minseok, but seokjin finds himself drawn to the black profile pic of yoongi's kkt. 

 

seokjin shakes his head, and shoves his phone back on the dress beside him. they barely know each other.

 

(and yet, seokjin thinks, here he is, wanting to entrust himself, his vulnerability to a man who would surely never understand. after all, their priorities were different, and so were their lives.)

 

*

 

_**file:** draft_

**to:** [kriscasso@qq.com](notareallink.com)

 **subject:** 11:11 wish

 

don't leave

 

 

 

 

 


	13. no more no less

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and yoongi - yoongi doesn't think seokjin is that type of person.
> 
> no. no he can't be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tired. haven't updated this in two months so here we go. slightly dark chapter that focuses more on the entertainment industry than yoonjin or any other specific person itself.
> 
>  
> 
> tw: mentions of (implied) non-con, suicide.

 

 

yoongi supposes that i need u era has always been the most memorable era they’ve had. even though they’ve won daesangs during wings, got invited to the bbma’s during spring day, i need u was where it had all started.

 

so as he’s standing on stage, with all six of his other members, he knows what’s coming next. the mc will shout out their name as their votes soar higher than any one of them ever expected then, and they’d cry backstage because they’ve finally won.

 

to relive this moment though, hurts. because this is the path where they’ve only kept going up, awards after awards, recognition from international communities and so many fans yoongi could never dream of it, not even in his biggest fantasies. but to have all this, again, this joy and this happiness that feels so fleeting, without seokjin, hurts.

 

backstage the other members had begun to tear up, jimin crying the most as his eyes are red and hair all messed up. before, he was crying because they’ve finally won. now, yoongi supposes, maybe jimin is crying because this moment so precious and dear to them, to all seven of them, now exists only to the six of them.

 

yoongi misses seokjin, but he’s managing.

 

time’s moving faster than he thought, as they go through era after era. and every time they work on a new song, yoongi and namjoon both have to stop for a moment, because the soft, airy voice they always expect to come up, doesn’t. it’s either jimin’s, jeongguk’s, or taehyung’s. and it feels beyond wrong.

 

backstage, yoongi types a quick text to seokjin as he attaches a selca of him and the trophy. he smiles as the message sends. they’ve been getting closer ever since half of china line departed for their own career. seokjin texted him at the dead of night, and yoongi had stayed up to four am for the man.

 

seokjin is different in this universe. not too much, but still enough to notice. there’s always difference when the man in this universe was raised from childhood as an idol and compared to just jumping into idol-hood when you’re already an adult. seokjin was more perfect in this life. he’s been well-rounded, the variety king on shows, the mood maker that happily bounces along with the rest of beagle line.

 

(hoseok had played one of exo’s dance practices, watching intently as seokjin moved back and forth. yoongi asked how his dancing was, and hoseok had only sighed and flopped down on the wooden floor of the practice room.

 

“perfect.” hoseok utters bitterly, “so much so that he could almost rival jongin-sshi or yixing-sshi.”

 

yoongi nodded slightly, “as expected of sm.”)

 

*

 

_yoongi blinks slightly as seokjin trudges into the room they share, posture still straight and marvelous until the door shuts close and seokjin slumps down. he slips his jacket off and hooks his fingers around his belt._

 

_“where’d you go today?” yoongi asks, though the slight smell of soju drifting in the air is enough of an answer._

 

_seokjin looks up, surprised, before collecting himself with a tight smile, “didn’t think you’d be back so soon yoongi. i was out with a few other ‘92 line, to celebrate heeyeon’s birthday.”_

 

_yoongi nods. “nice way to spend your free time. how did you not get caught though? so many idols in one place… the media is sure to catch on.”_

 

_seokjin shrugs, “the guy from dispatch that caught us owed heeyeon a favor.”_

 

_as if almost on instinct, yoongi shrivels up a bit inside. “a favor?”_

 

_seokjin brushes a hand through his hair as his other free hand unbuttons his shirt, pausing to cast a disgusted glance at yoongi, “she’s not like that, yoongi. even if she was, so what? lots of people are like that in the industry.”_

 

_yoongi nods along, even though his hands are suddenly sticky with sweat._

 

_“it’s how we survive. not everyone gets a ticket to fame.”_

 

_“yes,” yoongi agrees, “but we did, in the end.”_

 

_seokjin only cocks an eyebrow, before looking away and grabbing his pajamas. “oh? is that what everyone thinks?_

 

_he turns around and leaves, presumably to go the bathroom and yoongi stares at the empty spot where seokjin used to be standing._

 

_seokjin's not that type of person._

 

_*_

 

“you know,” taehyung says as he nervously bites his lips, “remember during n.o’s era?” at the collective nod, taehyung folds his hands in, “seokjin was contemplating it.”

 

“contemplating what?” namjoon leans in.

 

taehyung takes a deep breath in, “sellinghisbodyoutsowecouldgetourfirstwin.”

 

hoseok frowns, “slow down tae.”

 

taehyung takes another sharp breath, punctuating each word. “selling. his. body. so. we. could. get. our. first. win.”

 

there’s silence. yoongi forgets to breathe.

 

jeongguk shakes his head, hands clenched, “he’s not that type of person.”

 

namjoon rubs his forehead tiredly, a deep frown on his face, “and how do you even know this?”

 

“i heard him on a phone call to jaehwan-sshi.”

 

yoongi scowls, “jaehwan encouraged him to do that?” screw honorifics, he thinks.

 

taehyung shakes his head. “no. but i think jaehwan-sshi knew someone that’s done it before.”

 

more silence.

 

hoseok curls his legs in, “he was always the prettiest one out of all of us.”

 

*

 

(before the conversation floats back to a topic safer and lighter, yoongi hears whispers passed between jeongguk and namjoon as he’s heading back to his bed.

 

“hyung,” jeongguk whispers, “do you really think seokjin-hyung-”

 

“no,” namjoon cuts in, “no.”)

 

*

 

seokjin has always been a hard person to read. they’ve all agreed on that point. it took namjoon up to debut to finally understand a glimpse of who seokjin was, and time is still running for yoongi.

 

but even so, one thing for sure is that there was no way seokjin sold his body for their first win. because if he did, then they wouldn’t have won anything in this universe. and even if seokjin did, even if seokjin did offer his body in exchange for a happiness the group had been yearning for so long, then yoongi is just sorry.

 

sorry that he had made seokjin go to such extremes for just a glimpse of what fame looked like.

 

selling your body out in exchange for offers, promotions and other goodies was common in the industry. it’s always been. becoming famous was always a competition for each idol group and some would go to extremes to accomplish it. sometimes, what they offer in one area can overlook everything else in another area.

 

this is how fame works, yoongi supposes. fame is given to those who work for it, or it’s given those who don’t deserve it. idols who are desperate enough to sell out their body, belong in the first category.

 

this was the dark side of the entertainment industry. because sometimes, being talented in singing and dancing just wasn’t enough. there’s been numerous accounts where groups full of talented people disbanded because either the company didn’t want to waste more money on them, or they just didn’t attract fans in the first place. suicides, rape, sex and drugs were the extreme edge of this so-called world that seemingly everyone that wants to become famous wants to join.

 

(people like seokjin knew what he was doing when he entered this industry, people like yoongi and namjoon didn’t because all they wanted to do was make music. maybe that’s why the two of them always holds the most suspicions in the whole group. scandals, lies, dispatch were all hovering over their heads. namjoon, as the leader, didn’t want to see anyone of them subject to it and yoongi - yoongi just didn’t want to hear about it. not now. not ever.

 

because you couldn’t trust anyone in this industry. fame will leave you as fast it had come to you.)

 

they are the prey and the predator lurks above them, unknown, unseen.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't actually know if what i wrote happened or not. nor am i insinuating that it has happened and seokjin or whoever has done this. this is complete fiction, meaning it's to my imagination. shrugs. but this is just how the entertainment industry is, kids.


	14. still there still here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a little look into who seokjin is. and what he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updated!!!!!!! chpt 14 on the 14th!!! wow im so funny rip
> 
> anyways this fic is about to hit 15000 hits and its almost at 1000 kudos and i just really want to say that thank you all for sticking with me for this fic, even tho there's parts where i write terribly and everything sounds the same and nothing makes sense but yet some of you are still here and im really touched ok thank you for putting up with all this
> 
> that being said, enjoy my take on a closer in depth look at seokjin's personality since in this fic, he started training at 12 y/o compared to the jin we know entering bighit at like 18/19
> 
>  
> 
> (yes i changed title ok "mercy mercy me (parallel feats)" was a mouthful >_> and each chapter is now not a song name, but an actual title woooo)

 

 

when yifan had left, followed by luhan, seokjin wanted to collapse onto his bed and cry. he’s been with them since trainee days, he’s been with them through their ups and downs, seen them endure their way through harsh words and homesickness. he’s seen them at their best, and he’s seen them at their worst.

 

but now, right now, seokjin wants to think that they were selfish and far too weak. he remembers being thirteen and completing a song without runoffs and a dance routine without mistakes and flushing in pride until the other trainees had began practicing with much more fluidity, earning praises from the trainer. 

 

he remembers being fifteen and insecure because was he actually able to debut, will he ever debut, is he ever going to catch up on the talent that others had? what would it feel to not be a backup dancer or vocalist to his seniors and instead stand on a stage that was all for him? he remembers that the practice room was his second home and he’d stay the night there, even as the janitor tried to usher him out. he was desperate, on so many levels.

 

he remembers being seventeen and thinking about the five years he’s been training and wondering if there will ever be an end to all of this, the dieting, the training, and the pure filthy stench of toxic competitiveness. 

 

he remembers the trainees that had joined aboard during his time there, and left when they hadn’t made the final lineup for the boy group debut. he thinks about the atmosphere and betrayal and attitude when they all realized that the world was always going to be every man for himself, and that no amount of friendship and love would satisfy what they’ve really come here for.

 

out of all those years, he remembers the feeling soaring through his body when they announce the ones that made the debut cutline. it seems like all the years of aching had finally dimmed down, because the light was near.

 

(then they debuted, and the ache comes back to haunt seokjin to his bones. debuting does not and will not, equal to the success they’ve dreamed of.)

 

seokjin is angry and tired and dreads the time where he had trained for 8 years, and he thinks, yeah, yeah they were weak, they had taken that chance away from trainees who worked so hard, they had filled in the hole of the final debut lineup and to see them give it away so quickly just makes seokjin want to scream at them. how could you, seokjin would ask, how could you throw away what everyone else dreamed of?

 

they were selected out of the numerous trainees back then to debut. some who have fought far too hard to earn a place they were not given. the two of them were given a seat on the throne and to see them throw it away is disgraceful, seokjin thinks, when he, and junmyeon and jongin and numerous others, trained years for this opportunity. it’s pathetic, seokjin thinks at the back of his mind, that they left just like that, as if their place wasn’t of any worth.

 

(it’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not  _ fair _ , seokjin chants. 

 

the fact that they gave up so easily or the fact that their mistreatment was so blatant?

 

_ it’s not fair _ , seokjin pleads anyways, as he tries to go back to sleep. 

 

but he should’ve known then, he should’ve known now.)

 

and stage three, seokjin is burying himself back in his blankets as he tries to think about all the wrongdoings yifan and luhan could possibly have encountered. wonders how they could’ve stood through it, wonders why yixing and tao are still doing so.

 

perhaps it is his fault, for never noticing it until it was far too late.

 

*

 

“sometimes i wonder what my childhood would’ve been like,” luhan says, back when he was still here in person and not miles away in china on the dongfang television channel, when he was still by their sides and still cracking up to odd jokes with minseok and teasing yifan with the audacity only luhan possessed, “you know. if i wasn’t an idol.”

 

minseok nods in agreement but seokjin tips his head in confusion.

 

to him, this, the group, the training, the dorms, the whole spectrum of the idol life  _ was _ their childhood.

 

it was odd, to the then twenty one year old seokjin, that anything else would’ve also counted as a childhood too.

 

it was odd, seokjin had thought, that being in the practice room twenty four seven and smelling of sweat and feeling like crap with the constant looming fear of strict trainers and the debut cutline, and always having to trust himself over everybody else was  _ not _ the norm for what a basic childhood was supposed to be like. 

 

(when he tells minseok this, minseok says nothing until he’s got both arms wrapped around seokjin, one hand reaching up to ruffle the younger’s hair. then he talks, and he talks about cartoons and his sister’s squeaky laughter, he talks about family nights where they’d cook and watch sappy dramas together, he talks about bloody knees and dirty clothes from soccer, he talks about snowball fights with neighborhood kids, he talks about faking illness so to not go to school, he talks about the highlights of the town and the old squeaky set of swings in the nearby park, he talks about falling in love with the pretty girl next door, he talks about  _ home  _ \- he talks about  _ childhood _ . and all of it is unfamiliar to seokjin.)

 

*

 

the year 2013 was their year. it was exo’s start to their daesang-winning, chart-topping, million seller path. he remembered xoxo had released around then, earning their first win with wolf, and their first and second daesang with growl. he remembered going up to the stage in their outfits, decked out in school uniform, and seokjin imagines it must’ve been funny, all of them wobbling up to the stage, awkwardly waiting for junmyeon to take the mic.

 

seokjin was standing on the side between jongin and sehun, eyes still wide from surprise. he can hear junmyeon’s barely concealed sobs that the mic still seems to catch, seokjin wincing as the noise reverberates around the stadium, the other members also on the verge of tears. seokjin had held onto jongin and sehun’s tightly, entwining them. he was elated, but no matter how hard they squeeze his hand back, shoulders knocking against his as they take bow after bow, seokjin didn’t feel like he quite belong. even when they had circled together into a group huddle, everyone talking over each other in excitement and joy and honor, seokjin felt as thin as the air that slipped through the empty space between their bodies, and for that moment, and many moments to come, he felt like he was not meant to be there.

 

afterwards, they’d all be huddling on their dorms and crying and laughing and watching reruns of their favorite movies, and they’d be blissfully happy. and seokjin would be happy too, the meaning of belonging lingering at the back of his head only to reappear again when the time was right.

 

(the award show right before yifan’s sudden leave, seokjin finds yifan in the washroom, leaning against the wall as he takes a startlingly long drag. 

 

“hyung,” seokjin murmurs carefully, wrinkling his nose at the smell, “you’re a singer, i don’t think you’re suppose to do that to your voice.”

 

yifan stares back, before looking away to drop the cigarette in the trash. he straightens his outfit and pulls out a box of mint to pop into his mouth, quirking his lips up as he performs a mock salute.

 

“i don’t think anyone would care too much, jin-ah, my voice isn’t the reason i’m in exo.”)

 

*

 

seokjin decides, ultimately, that he has more friends than an average idol should, considering privacy and all that. yet ultimately, he doesn’t have many friends. he’s got the members, and out of that circle he’s only really got sandeul, jaehwan, heeyeon, minhyuk, yoongi and jeongguk. anyone else was either an acquaintance or someone he’s not yet allowed to mention in front of the public eye.

 

(people like jiwoo, were the latter. the members call her his little secret and seokjin shrivels up inside.

 

it’s not like that. at least, not yet, not in this time of life. not when he’s an rising idol that’s basking in the spotlight, still paying back his trainee debt behind the curtains.)

 

he doesn’t have much female friends. but he has a fond spot for the red velvet members, and lots of respect for snsd. other than that, there’s the girls in the ninety-two line group chat he’s often found himself striking up a conversation with, and they’re all nice, but he’s not quite very much into them as he’d think he’d be. they’re nice, they’re pretty, and seokjin has exchanged shy and fleeting touches and kisses with. but -  _ but  _ it doesn’t feel right, somehow.

 

(they’re all lovely, all decked out in clothing easy to slip a hand into, entire body just shining in glitter, eyes wide as they look up at him. they tell him what he wants and he grants their wish, asking each and every step of the way if they wanted this. he’s done it before, hands skilled enough to know where to prod.

 

seokjin likes them, likes them a lot, in fact. he’s got a reputation spurred on by his seniors, and one that continues through the chain of rookies after him. so yeah, he likes it. likes being in control and feeling free, even if the windows are shut with the curtains drawn tight, the door locked shut and their sounds muffled to the quietest of whispers.

 

all in all, he likes the commitment he doesn’t need to have with them, a reapplication of makeup and the adjustment of clothes is all it takes to switch back to their business relationship. after all, he can have what he wants but it’ll kill him in the end. he’s seen it with baekhyun and taeyeon, kangin and an innocent fan. 

 

seokjin resorts to fleeting moments dispatch and saesangs will never get ahold of. he can’t die yet, not in their hands.)

 

his friends are the best thing to happen to him, people like heeyeon and sandeul and jongdae, who’s smiles are contagious. and seokjin admires and aspires to be like them, like heeyeon, an idol who loves making others happy and is incredibly persistent and hardworking to boot. seokjin tells her so, when he sees her backstage for a music show. she smiles widely, before telling him that she admires that about him too. 

 

but that’s about it, seokjin thinks. he’s got a few friends here and there but he’s never much about the whole social butterfly thing. that was for the show and for the stage, he’s got the number of every idol he’s encountered but not because he’ll ever call them, but more so to act as a reassurance to his reputation and heart. he’s got things to live up to, with the whole flower-boy, loveable and nation’s sweetheart image.

 

so he doesn’t have many people he’d consider his friends. but if they ever refer to him as one, whether on broadcast or through text, he’ll go along with the ride. after all, it’s the least he can do to brighten the mood of someone he barely knows. jongdae had once called him manipulative as a joke, and seokjin had felt guilty about it for a week before deciding that this is who he was and he can’t really change that. happy people create easy and answerable conflict, sad ones do not. 

 

the issue sometimes, was that he felt fake. especially backstage of a music show or awards show, where other idols are in close proximity, making it nearly impossible to not strike up a conversation with them. he doesn’t mind that at all, but sometimes some idols eyes were a bit more perceiving than others, and seokjin’s afraid they’d see through the mask he’s spent years to built.

 

there’s a lot of things that come to mind when he’s backstage, in a variety show, during an award show, or even just during isac’s. he’s got no time to ponder them all, not when he’s busy smiling at the girl in row three who swoons at his wink, and the entirety of the audience shriek back in response. cameras clicking - him trying not to blink.

 

he choose this life and now he’s truly living it.

 

*

 

during weekly idol, when the question “which idols would you like to get to know or hang out with?” popped up, the first thing that emerged in seokjin’s mind was bangtan. he refrained from answering, because their manager said fandom rivalry brought in revenue, and making blatant statements about other idols without a pre-established relationship, was something none of them are really allowed to do. and bangtan has been rising up in the charts these days, there’s even less of a chance for seokjin to bring them up.

 

he hears baekhyun answer the question, an expected, “super junior! we’re in the same company but we rarely see them now, they’re always busy.” to which heechul, sitting on the stool, being the one asking the questions, straightens up and scolds baekhyun with a joking tone, “i’m right in front of you, you brat!”

 

laughter. the topic switches and seokjin is back in safe waters.

 

but after the recording is done, bts is all seokjin can think about. it’s odd, that they’re the first idols to come to mind, but he likes them, from first impressions anyway. there’s a little feeling in his heart that thinks that spending some time with them is what’s right. it’s not even an arguable topic, seokjin just feels that being with them is where he should be, which is ridiculous because his day off isn’t really supposed to be in the company of four acquaintances, and two close friends, with a band that he barely knows other than the frequent texts from one of their sister, and two of their members. his day off is for learning chinese with yixing, for eating out with jongin, for karaoke nights with beagle line, for television reruns with kyungsoo, and videogames with sehun.

 

they shouldn’t be dedicated to hanging out with people he barely knows, but feels like he’s known far more than just three years. it’s odd, is all seokjin wants to say.

 

but then he texts jeongguk about it despite his thoughts, before his mind catches up with his heart, and he can see his message being read, and waits for another ten minutes until there’s finally a response.

 

_ hyung we’re all free on friday!!  _ jeongguk says in his text,  _ do you want to come by our dorms then? we can play super mario like we always do _

 

_ i mean  _

_ we as in bangtan lol _

 

seokjin types back an  _ i think i’m free friday evening. i’m excited to see you then!  _ and presses send.

 

_ not really familiar with super mario but i hope it’s fun :) _

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hey they're gonna meet up :o 
> 
> the next chapter will be v lengthy and detailed, and will switch between povs, unlike the usual format.
> 
> (if it sounds like i'm slutshaming the girls.... i'm really not, i apologize if it sounds anything like that because it might draw that implication but it's really not meant to. i don't want to make seokjin seem pure because, he's not. and like, someone being trained to be an idol since age 12 is vastly different from someone who enters the industry at age 18~20. so yeah. here's a closer look into his personality, i didnt want to write him off as too different, but there's no possibility he's the same as the jin we know on screen.)
> 
> thank you all for reading <3 feedback/kudos are always, always appreciated


	15. changes we cannot comprehend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and so they hang out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry, it truly feels like i abandoned this fic for these 5 or so months. but i haven't, i've just been too caught up in my personal life that i neglected this fic. i originally wanted to update by christmas, but the news of shinee's jonghyun caused a bigger emotional impact on me than i thought so i couldn't bring myself to write. please accept this update as my means of a gift to you for these past holidays, tae's bday and this coming 2018. i hope 2018 treats you all well. <3
> 
> this is only part 1, the next chapter will be similar to this format of the pov switching back and forth.
> 
> *** indicates a change in pov

 

 

 

everyone was huddled around jeongguk’s phone that day. they were just finishing dinner, and jeongguk’s phone had started vibrating on the table, a short segment of the chorus of urban zapaka’s “i don’t love you” ringing throughout the room. everyone paused in their eating, and jeongguk had immediately unlocked it.

 

seokjin-hyung, it read, at the top of the chat box.

 

jeongguk’s eyes quickly reads the message, and jimin, who’s sitting beside him, only gapes.

 

“what?” hoseok asks, “why do you guys look like you’re all drained of blood?”

 

jeongguk is shaking, almost, as yoongi takes in the way the wooden spoon easily slips out of jeongguk’s fingers. he gulps. “jin-hyung,” he starts, eyes flickering to his phone screen, “asked if he can hang out with us.”

 

yoongi freezes, his eyes flying over to namjoon whose eyebrows are furrowed together in thought, and everything is quiet. hoseok nudges namjoon slightly, jostling him out of his momentary stupor. 

 

namjoon blinks, “hyung wants to hang out?”

 

after the collective nods of responses, namjoon brushes a hand through his hair and closes his eyes - if only for a few seconds.

 

“aren’t we free friday?” hoseok says, cutting through the thick silence. “we can see him then.”

 

“yeah,” yoongi adds, voice dry, something in his throat that he can’t quite understand, “ask hyung if he’s free.”

 

jeongguk unlocks his phone and prepares to type, but stops. his sighs echo through the room and taehyung throws an arm over his shoulders, worry etched onto his features. there is a blatant hesitance on jeongguk’s face, his eyebrows furrowed together, hands slightly trembling as he stares at his phone screen. yoongi knows he’s struggling inside - they all were - they were  _ afraid. _

 

“i don’t really think i’m ready,” jeongguk says, gnawing on his lip, “to hang out with him and know that he doesn’t really remember any of us.”

 

jimin nods in understanding and agreement, casting his eyes down, “it’ll be weird.”

 

a silent murmur of agreement ripples through the six of them, the thought of being able to interact with seokjin again on the basis of friends was great - but they were more than that before, they shared a house with seokjin before, won their first award with him, released their first song with him, won their first daesang with him, spent all their holidays with him. they were a family first, and now they weren’t. seokjin’s not in the picture anymore, not like before.

 

it’s hoseok who once again cuts through the silence. (and yoongi only listens, biting the insides of his cheek so to not say something he’d regret. he was the eldest here, he was supposed to be the one giving them guidance and reassurance in moments like these, yet he can’t bring it in himself to do so. seokjin, yoongi pleads in his mind, come back, i can’t fill this role, i don’t understand, i’m not you, i don’t know, i don’t know, i don’t-)

 

“don’t worry.” hoseok says, “it won’t be.”

 

hoseok turns his head to namjoon, who sighs, glancing at yoongi. yoongi nods, slowly, apprehensively, but namjoon understands.

 

“tell him we’re free friday,” namjoon says, “it’ll be alright jeongguk.”

 

(jeongguk sends the message, and the rest of them heave a heavy sigh.

 

“at least it’ll feel like before,” hoseok says, calm and collected, “at least we can pretend to feel like it’s before and normal and everything.”

 

a ding from jeongguk’s phone signals seokjin’s reply. jeongguk looks down to read it, pained expression becoming even more so, shaking his head in disbelief, eyes wide - blank.

 

“but hyung,” jeongguk says, voice cracking, staring down at his phone, “how? seokjin-hyung isn’t even familiar with super mario, it’s not like before, we can’t even.” jeongguk sniffles and yoongi clenches his fist. jeongguk continues, “we can’t even pretend.” he pushes his phone to the centre of the table, and everyone leans in, 5 heads bumping against each other, to look at what seokjin had sent.

 

jimin’s wide eyes turn to meet taehyung’s surprised expression, and even hoseok can’t hide his surprise. seokjin not knowing what super mario was? when he used to have his room decorated with the figurines, when he’d stay up late with maknae line playing mario cart while picking fights with them at the same time, throwing shells and knocking controllers and other obscene distractions - how could he not know? yoongi looks away from jeongguk who’s almost shaking, despite jimin and taehyung’s means of comfort. how different was seokjin in this world? where even the fundamental aspects of seokjin’s childhood was so non-existent to the man himself?

 

i miss you, yoongi mutters inside his head, so much.)

 

***

 

“you sure you’ll be alright?” chanyeol asks, leaning on the side of the dorm wall. “you sure you don’t want to stay here and watch us play another session of league?”

 

seokjin laughs, the imagery of the three of them, chanyeol, sehun, baekhyun, yelling out profanities as they play, popping into his head. he shakes his head, “no thanks yeol, i already told you, i’m going to see my friends from bangtan.”

 

sehun pops his head into the hallway, lips scrunched up in a pout, “hyung, how could you give up your day off for them?”

 

seokjin rolls his eyes, “i’m with you 24/7 sehunnie, one day with my friends is barely anything.”

 

an amused voice, one belonging to minseok, rings out in the hallway, “let him go you dorks. it’s not like he’s leaving us for them.”

 

seokjin smiles, “thanks hyung.” (leave exo for bangtan? that’s something seokjin’s never considered before. he wouldn’t betray his sm family like this, the ones who’ve nurtured him and taught him and let him grow - no, he was loyal. he wasn’t being treated badly, he had no excuse to leave, he wasn’t yifan or luhan. he was kim seokjin and he was loved. he thinks - he knows.)

 

minseok smiles, tipping his coffee cup up in salute.

 

the buzz from seokjin’s phone alerts him that he should be going. 

 

“hyunkyun-hyung is calling,” seokjin says, his manager probably already downstairs in the garage with the car, “i’ll be going then. bye guys!”

 

*

 

seokjin wasn’t feeling nervous until he’s guided up the apartment by one of bangtan’s managers. the man is tall, sturdy, nice and familiar. very familiar, even though seokjin has never met him in his entire life.

 

“i’m sejin,” the manager introduces himself, “i exchanged contact info with your manager so if anything happens, he’ll know.”

 

seokjin nods, taking in the the old interior of the apartment hallway, the musky scent of something that seokjin can’t quite place. 

 

sejin stops in front of the door and unlocks the door with a key, and seokjin steps in.

 

first. there is the smell of sweat and cologne, with the lingering touch of perfume.  _ home _ , seokjin wants to say, it smells a lot like  _ home. _

 

then seokjin takes in the appearance of the small hallway that leads into a living room, a kitchen on one side and another hallway diverging into what must be the rooms for the boys. there are bits of clothing thrown all over the floor in a pile, the stench of it barely concealed, and the walls are blank. everything is quite minimalistic and clean for a group of six boys, seokjin thinks, in fact everything seems cold. (they tell you that a person’s room or house reflects who they are inside. exo’s dorms is a beautiful combination of the ones who are hyperactive and the ones who are quiet, the kitchen is minimalistic and clean for on-goers like minseok and luhan with the white textiles and light blue cupboards while the living room, frequented by gamers like chanyeol and sehun, are messy and colorful with the red couch and pop-art posters. all of it was a visual representation of who they are as people. step back and the dorm was a perfect visual representation of who exo was as a group. but stepping into bangtan’s dorms, seokjin doesn’t get that. he doesn’t see pictures of embarrassing close-ups of the members scattered over the walls, or posters of their group pictorials. the furniture is all simple, white couch, wooden chairs and glass table - everything screams minimalism and not - not  _ bangtan _ . seokjin expected warm colors and lights, the occasional stereo, bean bag chairs and tangled wires of the controllers and unmatching dinner plates and bowls but. but. it’s everything but that.

 

then again, seokjin thinks, he’s in no position to dictate what their dorm looks like. even if everything was familiar and unfamiliar all at once. it overwhelms him a bit.)

 

the first person to pop out was a tall man, one that seokjin thinks goes by the name namjoon, the leader of bangtan. the man looks up and sees him, eyes widening in surprise (and fear? of what?) and seokjin smiles back. beside seokjin, sejin clears his throat and bids goodbye.

 

the door closing softly behind him.

 

when seokjin makes eye contact with him, namjoon smiles back, timidly, dimples popping up. and some part of seokjin freezes up inside. (there’s something warm about the man. something that makes seokjin swell with the urge to grab ahold of his hand, smoothing his thumb over his palm, leaning into the warmth that namjoon probably radiates. there’s something about him, seokjin thinks, that makes seokjin feel at peace.)

 

“hey seokjin-sshi,” namjoon says, “i’m namjoon. welcome to our dorm.”

 

“hi, no need to be so formal, call me hyung,” seokjin responds, instinctive ‘on-stage’ smile cracking out as he does his little wave. “where’s the rest of you guys?”

 

“they’ll be out in a bit,” namjoon says, hand scratching the back of his neck, “i’ll go get them.”

 

seokjin nods, smile fading a bit as he hover awkwardly by the door, jacket half shrugged off his shoulders.

 

“you can,” namjoon starts, “uh, leave your stuff on the couch.”

 

“okay,” seokjin says, taking in the surroundings as he walks further and further into the dorm.

 

***

 

yoongi doesn’t know what to feel. he’s not supposed to be feeling the sweat in his hands, the shiver down his spine - he’s rehearsed for this, and so have the others. when namjoon popped his head into the room where all five of them were sitting together, trying to compose themselves before seokjin’s arrival, yoongi had felt something in him flip upside down. it was time, he thought, and the rest of them looked at each other in anticipation (in fear).

 

“we’ve seen him all the time during music programs and award shows and on tv,” hoseok says reassuringly, but his fists are clenched and he’s staring at the wall. 

 

(yeah, yoongi thinks, we’ve seen him during all those times, performing with exo, looking every bit of the superstar that he was, dancing and singing, the epitome of a perfect idol - but that was different, no? here, exo’s kim seokjin was in their dorms, spending his day-off with them, and it hits too close to home. yoongi will get reminded of the times when seokjin was with bangtan again, when he had yelled out curses and whined and became one with the maknae line, when he’d cook the entire group a warm meal because no one could go home for the holidays and no one had money for food, and yoongi - yoongi will be reminded of all the times he and seokjin knocked their heads together in the dark, sharing the same blanket, watching a movie, and all the times seokjin would kiss him on the lips or cheek or forehead, something far too intimate for them to ever understand or process but cherished all the same. yoongi will be reminded of all the times he and seokjin were together and so close to love even though seokjin tells him it’s anything but, and now, now that’ll definitely be true. seokjin not loving him. 

 

it was one of yoongi’s biggest fears.

 

now it’s true.)

 

regardless though. he stands up and straightens his back and lets out a breath. he was the eldest, he needs to take the lead so that the others can have someone to fall back on. yoongi’s talked to seokjin through text, this time would be no different, seokjin would just be in person this time. real, very real.

 

he slips past namjoon through the door and out the hallway and into the living room and lets a genuine smile grace his features. seokjin was here, sitting on the couch and so utterly beautiful. so like before but so - so not.

 

“hey hyung,” yoongi starts and seokjin smiles, standing up. “hey yoongi,” seokjin says, “how’ve you been?”

 

“not bad,” he says, “we’re doing well.”

 

“yeah,” seokjin says, nodding, “i saw your guys hyyh concert excerpt, it was really cool!”

 

“thanks,” yoongi says, hands sliding into his jean pockets awkwardly, fiddling with the threads inside the pockets. behind them, jeongguk speaks up and yoongi breathes out a sigh of relief.

 

“hyung,” jeongguk says, immediately leaning in for the hug, split-second of surprise flickering on seokjin’s face before disappearing, one hand coming to hug jeongguk back. yoongi sees the way jeongguk lingers in seokjin’s hold, hands gently fisting at the shirt, nose tucked in, and eyes closed. it ends far too fast though and yoongi can see jeongguk mourning the loss of seokjin’s warmth.

 

“gukkie!” seokjin chirps happily, ruffling jeongguk’s hair gently, “you’re becoming more and more handsome each day, one day you’re going to beat out me for the visual role.”

 

jeongguk chuckles slowly, “no way hyung, that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

 

“who knows,” seokjin says, “but oh well, we’re not even in the same group. i guess my visual title is still pretty secure, at least in exo.”

 

yoongi looks away, the constant reminder of seokjin belonging to exo hurting too much for him to think properly. 

 

“right,” he hears jeongguk croak out, “exo.”

 

(and yoongi is jealous. that jeongguk falls so easily into this relationship with seokjin, much easier than yoongi who is still adjusting to this day, still learning that it’s not that seokjin it’s not that seokjin it’s not that - and having to understand that this seokjin isn’t the one he fell in love with, and they were too different to say they’re the same but so, so similar at the same time that you can’t help but think and wonder and assume. he’s jealous that jeongguk can leap past that and build a familiarity with seokjin and not think so much about  _ before _ but just. now. jeongguk is doing so well pretending that everything is fine and that this is normal and that it’s not weird that seokjin is exo’s jin and not bangtan’s jin and yoongi just doesn’t understand how. how. how does he do it?)

 

the rest of them, taehyung, jimin, hoseok and namjoon all familiarize themselves to seokjin, and then they fall into something in between acquaintances and friends. jeongguk opens up the ps4 and turns on the tv, the jingle and familiar graphics of mario kart appearing on the screen. he hands seokjin a controller, as if instinctively, not even looking back to see if the man knew he was supposed to take it.

 

yoongi nudges seokjin, having taken a seat next to him, “it’s yours.”

 

“oh,” seokjin says, surprised, “but i don’t know how to play mario kart.”

 

the room is silent again, everyone turning to look at seokjin with the instinctive reaction of surprise, but then they remember. on the couch, hoseok shrugs and smiles, “then what do you play hyung?”

 

“league, mostly.”

 

“but,” taehyung starts, and stops. words sitting on his tongue, lodged in his throat. 

 

(seokjin hated league.)

 

*

 

it’s easy to just fall in a pattern with seokjin. because technically everything feels the same, seokjin still jokes around with maknae line and is highly competitive in mario kart even if he’s not sure how to play it, and their dynamics just feel so natural and organic that they fall in so easily, back into the routine of when seokjin actually was part of bangtan, and it feels so normal.

 

but seokjin’s not seokjin in many ways. this seokjin isn’t overly confident or loud or gets angry, not even when jeongguk throws a blue shell at his kart, he smiles and only presses at his controller harder. he doesn’t tell bad jokes or puns, he laughs lightly when jimin tells one, but his laughter wasn’t really because he thought it was funny, more so the laughter you give when the silence needs to be filled in. this seokjin is more composed and collected, ears and cheeks never staining red even when he gets invested into the game. 

 

this seokjin had a drive that yoongi’s never seen before. this seokjin was the epitome of a perfect idol both on and off stage and that terrifies yoongi. a lot. (this seokjin, yoongi thinks, is so composed, too composed, as if there’s cameras from every directions pointing at him. yoongi’s seen seokjin’s fansite pictures, and no matter which angle, seokjin looks like he’s expecting it, he looks like he’s posing and it looks like it’s well thought out, even if the action was just something mundane and completel canon. this seokjin was trained for the cameras to take.)

 

so it feels normal but it’s not. because seokjin doesn’t act like seokjin. the slip-ups by the rest of them happen throughout the course of the day both through their actions or words. jeongguk and taehyung slip up the least, which is both surprising and not, when yoongi considers how well they compose themselves in public. and yoongi slips up the most. hands reaching out then moving back, knowing he had no right to take seokjin in by the hand or waist, no right to bring seokjin closer in any way. he’s always faltering, realizing his boundaries, brought out of his daydream by the nudge of namjoon or jimin or even hoseok, who laughs along with everyone but yoongi can still see his concern flash in his eyes, flickering, never fading.

 

it was hard. to be so close yet so far with someone you loved.

 

(the tv is opened and an old re-run of a drama is playing. yoongi knows this show. seokjin loves(loved) this show. the seven of them were all sitting on the floor, legs tangled together, as they stare at the screen. they all love this show, actually.

 

“aren’t they making a remake of this show next year?” jimin asks.

 

“yeah,” hoseok adds, “hope they find a good cast.”

 

in the corner of his eye, yoongi sees seokjin smile lightly, hesitation in his eyes.

 

“the directors have contacted a few idols for some of the minor parts,” seokjin says, leaving the sentence hanging in the air.

 

“oh?” namjoon asks, “were you..?”

 

seokjin beams, “sm accepted the offer for me for one of the minor roles. they want me to start acting but i didn’t want to start with a lead.”

 

“congratulations!” jeongguk says. (it’s what you deserve, yoongi adds.)

 

“i’m afraid i won’t do well,” seokjin says, “i never studied acting or anything so…”

 

“oh,” taehyung says, “right.” 

 

seokjin was an idol before anything else. he was born into the industry, and the seokjin yoongi knew was born from it.)

but yoongi still loves him. he's a romantic like that.

 

("but he's not the seokjin you," namjoon pauses, "loved." namjoon looks away, "how can you still love him when he's nothing like the jin-hyung we all knew?"

"people don't stop loving other people even when their entire personality changes," yoongi says quietly, "because, underneath it all, we still believe that they're still the person we knew. isn't that how it always plays out in those romance movies?"

 

namjoon stares at him, really stares at him, and yoongi hates the pity he sees. "yes hyung," namjoon says slowly, "but this isn't a personality change, this is the fact that this seokjin is a completely different person brought up in completely different circumstances. he's not who we knew him as. because that person," namjoon chokes up a bit, "that person doesn't exist."

 

"bullshit," yoongi snarls out, "he's there - he has to be."

 

"no," namjoon says, "he's not."

 

yoongi wants to cry. 

 

namjoon looks away, breathes in slowly.

 

"it's time to face reality hyung, the seokjin-hyung we knew and loved is gone."

 

"he doesn't exist here," namjoon adds after a pregnant pause, "he never did in the first place.")

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for sticking by me with my bad updates and bad scheduling <3 thank you all. i hope to have part 2 up soon. but idk for sure aha


	16. fate set us free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things change. jeongguk, yoongi and seokjin's relationships are explored.
> 
> perhaps this was how it's meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at this rate, i'm honestly going to be updating this every six months which is not the rate i want to be going at - at all. :/ but good news! we have an estimated four chapters left, so we're nearing the end of this rollercoaster, weirdly wrecked train of a fic. i thank you all for still sticking by even as my writing skills plunge into the abyss. life has been a mess, a hiatus has been taken, and this has been updated! woo.
> 
> i know this fic has been confusing. but things will end the way it's meant to end. it's yoonjin, through and through - but of course, i did mention prior that there will be a lot of implied/ambiguous jinkook. well. this chapter is going to be more straightforward with that. this chapter is also going to be a tad more confusing than the previous ones. hold on tight folks.
> 
> enjoy. <3

 

 

seokjin likes them. a lot.

 

they’re a nice group of people and seokjin can see why people on naver and pann always praises their personalities, because they’re just that nice. although it was weird that sometimes all six of them would enter a state of mutual silence, they were still amazing people and every bit of what seokjin imagined (and more).

 

being with them was comforting. he doesn’t feel like he’s intruding on things - it’s almost like he belongs here.

 

(maybe he does, a little voice in his head says. maybe this is where you belong.

 

don’t be ridiculous, seokjin replies, bangtan are friends i’ve known for a while, but they’ll never replace exo.

 

the voice in his head doesn’t reply, but a mantra of _isn’t this nice?_ and _seokjin-ah, don’t they feel like family_ repeats in his head, even as he pushes it down to his throat. he wonders how long he can keep this up before he accidentally let the words slip, that maybe - just maybe, he belonged here with the seven of them.

 

but of course, the rational part of seokjin knows he doesn’t.)

 

***

 

it’s not the end of the world. even though yoongi feels like it is, having to go through a process of learning seokjin, having to learn how to push the images of the seokjin he knew far, far away. this is kim seokjin, but this kim seokjin is a stranger.

 

seokjin’s currently talking about sm’s plans for him as an actor. he’s talking about how the rest of exo is so supportive - even the ones who have left, luhan, yifan, and tao all sending him their congratulations. he talks about his cf’s, his friends - he talks and talks and the rest of them listen. seokjin’s words fill in the silence that surrounds them. jeongguk is biting his lips even as he nods to seokjin’s words, and the rest of them are hiding the fact that they’re all in pain - listening to seokjin talk about the life he lived, one that sounded so much better than what bighit gave him.

 

yoongi’s getting tired. getting tired of “sm this” or “exo that”, he’s getting tired of hearing names beside theirs, and he wishes he was part of the life that seokjin has built. sure, seokjin’s not part of bangtan, and the company treats him like garbage most of the time, but yoongi knows seokjin belongs with them. here, all seven of them, building a career from nothing except trust and devotion and love.

 

seokjin used to be part of their growth.

 

(but does that make sense? this world they’re in shows that seokjin’s decision to not be a part of sm was a bad one - bangtan do become worldwide celebrities, but what does that matter when this seokjin, exo’s seokjin, sm’s pride and joy, is living his best life, doing the things he should have always been doing, being the star he was meant to be.

 

anyone can tell that seokjin should’ve been in exo. should’ve been in sm. sm doesn’t waste talent or visuals, they’d given seokjin all the opportunities they can get - they’re letting seokjin live up to the potential that he always deserved.

 

yoongi shouldn’t be against this. seokjin doesn’t belong in a company where he gets close to nothing. seokjin doesn’t belong by yoongi’s side - yoongi, who loves seokjin with all his might, who is selfish and stubborn down to the core, who makes mistakes enough to hurt. i don’t deserve him, yoongi thinks, but bangtan needs him.)

 

and yet - it’s not yoongi who snaps. yoongi, who’s blatant about his feelings, who’s anger catches up to him sometimes too fast too sudden and everything flashes before his eyes - yoongi, who has always criticized the world in front of him, who has enough anger to hurt and scar - it’s not him who breaks.

 

it’s jeongguk. jeongguk, with a mentality he’s nurtured since his teen years, who misses seokjin so much - too much. the boy who has been tucked under the wings of the hyung line, most especially under seokjin’s, who fed him food with his own allowance, who loved jeongguk. and jeongguk, who loved seokjin in all the ways you could, can only put up with so much. jeongguk’s not like hoseok or the seokjin they knew, he doesn’t hide things or hide his feelings and put on a mask for show. he’s jeongguk, on and off stage. he is his stage persona.

 

and sometimes, he gets sick of it all. yoongi understands. jeongguk loved. loves seokjin. they all do, yoongi especially. but jeongguk is fiercer, his love peeking out from his bunny smile and crinkled eyes, hands tucked around seokjin’s waist ever so gently. he’ll look to seokjin and think, _i love you i love you i love you_ and seokjin would smile, would back away but still offer jeongguk his warmth, _i love you too,_ seokjin would say in his smile, _but not like that._

 

“sm sure sounds like fun,” jeongguk says as he abruptly stands up, acid dripping out of his voice. eyes refusing to meet seokjin’s. instead, jeongguk takes a glance at yoongi, shaking his head slightly, “better than here, at least.”

 

he leaves. heading back to his room. the door slams shut.

 

“is he okay?” seokjin asks, eyebrows furrowed, “did i say something wrong?”

 

seokjin is concerned, but he doesn’t rush to stand up to follow jeongguk. he stays seated, eyes surveying the rest of them. a bit like bangtan’s seokjin. reading the mood before he goes to take his responsibility as the eldest hyung.

 

“not exactly,” namjoon is quick to say.

 

“he’s just in his teenage angst mode,” hoseok laughs it off, “you know how they are.”

 

“oh,” seokjin says, skeptical even at taehyung and jimin’s nod, “is… is bighit not treating you guys well?”

 

(yoongi wants to laugh. we should be asking you that question, he wants to say, when the moment was right - i should have asked and i should have listened.)

 

“bighit is treating us fine,” taehyung says as he shakes his head, “it’s just kookie being kookie. don’t mind him.”

 

seokjin purses his lips, shaking his head. “no, guys, i know i said something wrong. i’ll go talk to him, it’s obviously my fault, even if i don’t know what it is right now.”

 

the rest of bangtan look horrified. if seokjin talks to jeongguk, jeongguk will explode and break and collapse and seokjin won’t - can’t - pick up the pieces. jeongguk will say things that seokjin shouldn’t know.

 

“no!” namjoon almost yells out, before he clears his throat, “no, seokjin-hyung, it’s not necessary.”

 

“nonsense,” seokjin says, standing up, “don’t be so formal with me. i made a mistake, now i need to fix it.”

 

then he’s walking, faster than the rest of them could react, and opening the door to the room jeongguk went into. yoongi reaches out an arm to stop him, but seokjin slips out of his grasp, barely brushing his fingers.

 

(yoongi shouldn’t even be surprised now.)

 

***

 

“hey,” seokjin says, knowing he’s stepped into private territory. some part of him feels guilt for not listening to the others, but there was an urge in him to rush over and make sense of the situation.

 

(and he’s never really done this before. he’s fought with the other members, but never had to apologize first. he tries to be the bigger person, but amidst schedules, amidst his anxiety, he never gets to it. the other members do, though. he’s never had to act like the hyung, really. not even with sehun or jongin.)

 

silence. the room is dark, but seokjin can make out a lump on one of the beds by the windows.

 

“i’m sorry if i offended you,” seokjin continues, “i didn’t mean to. i don’t what i did or said that hurt you, but i. i just hope you’re okay.”

 

‘it’s okay,” jeongguk says, voice muffled through the bedsheets. “i’m okay.”

 

“did i offend you or… something?”

 

“...no.”

 

“oh.”

 

“yeah.”

 

“should i leave?”

 

jeongguk says something but seokjin doesn’t catch it. there’s a long pause. seokjin doesn’t know if he should speak up and ask again, or just leave.

 

it happens very suddenly. jeongguk jumping up from his side on the bed to latch onto seokjin in a hug, fingers curled so softly around his waist. jeongguk’s tall, as tall as seokjin, but he leans his head on seokjin’s shoulder and stays.

 

seokjin’s not quite sure what to do with his hands.

 

“i missed you,” jeongguk mumbles quietly into his shirt.

 

seokjin laughs gently, “aw gukkie, i missed you too.”

 

“no,” jeongguk says, stepping back, he’s gnawing on his lips and seokjin frowns. “not like that.”

 

seokjin blinks. “what?”

 

jeongguk shakes his head sadly, “forget i said anything hyung.”

 

seokjin’s frown deepens. “what do you mean not like that?”

 

and before seokjin can push even more, prod at jeongguk, get the answers he’s wanted. the light turns on. jeongguk’s eyes stare off into the distance. seokjin turns around, and sees yoongi by the doorway.

 

yoongi glances at jeongguk with a look seokjin can’t read, before he looks at seokjin. his eyes soften, just a little bit.

 

***

 

“so,” taehyung says, breaking the silence, eyes lingering on the door of jeongguk and yoongi’s room. “do we go in?”

 

“i think,” jimin says, fiddling with his fingers, “i think we should tell him.”

 

all eyes turn to him. “what,” yoongi deadpans, “why?”

 

“i mean, look at us,” jimin smiles crudely, “we’re living everyday just fine but we’re also moping at the mere thought of seokjin not being here with us. it’s too big of a change. we all miss him. i know i do.”

 

“what would telling him change though?” hoseok asks, “it’s not like this is something we can easily fix.”

 

“but we can try, can’t we?” jimin pushes, slumped over and tired. he has dark eye circles and yoongi wishes his reminders for jimin to eat more was more enforced. they’re all struggling, even if their future is secured. even if they know fame and riches is waiting for them at the end of all of this, that doesn’t change the fact that they’re living through these days all over again, without seokjin - who mattered more than anyone could’ve ever thought.

 

“we could,” taehyung agrees as he takes jimin’s hand in his, rubbing jimin’s palm softly, “we could try.”

 

namjoon is slumped over on the couch. “i don’t know,” he says finally. “but. if we don’t tell him, jeongguk might. there’d be no control over seokjin’s reaction then.”

 

then they look to yoongi. eyes steady. hoseok reaches over to massage yoongi’s back gently.

 

yoongi shakes his head, breathing in slowly. “no. there’s no way we can tell him now. i think we all know how he’d react. let’s just get those two out of there.”

 

he stands up and heads to his shared room with jeongguk. he hears quiet murmurs when he places his hand on the knob, a quiet _i missed you._  yoongi freezes. he waits a bit.

 

_i missed you too._

 

*

 

yoongi’s still standing there. unsure why he even entered in the first place. jeongguk is peering at him, eyes wide with a sort of sadness yoongi knows would take days to mend.

 

a ringtone interrupts this silence.

 

seokjin pulls out his phone, waving it with an apologetic smile. “my manager,” he says, “i guess he’s here to pick me up.”

 

“hey hyung-nim,” seokjin says, “you’re already downstairs?” seokjin glances up at yoongi for a moment, before looking back down at the ground. “yeah. okay. i’m coming.”

 

seokjin smiles again, lips stretched out politely in an apologetic smile. “i have to go, we have a shooting tomorrow at 11.”

 

he exits the room, past yoongi who stands there half in trance, and jeongguk follows behind. taehyung, jimin, namjoon and hoseok look up at curiously, watching as seokjin smiles at them and bows.

 

“it’s been fun today,” seokjin says, “but i have to go. my manager’s already downstairs waiting.”

 

“thanks for coming hyung,” taehyung says, grinning. he’s careful not to let his attention linger on yoongi or jeongguk, who both look too tired, too somber.

 

“thanks for the invite!” seokjin says before he turns to jeongguk, eyes softening, “feel better soon, okay jeongguk?”

 

slightly stunned, jeongguk only murmurs out an okay.

 

“bye guys!” seokjin waves a hand the rest of them squeeze into the hallway to see him go, he tugs on his face mask. “see you next time.” they murmur their goodbyes and seokjin leaves, disappearing down the hallways.

 

they all let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding.

 

***

 

seokjin’s entering the car, heart filled with mixed emotions of that last moment with bangtan, when he realizes he left his jacket upstairs.

 

“oh shit,” seokjin says, tapping his manager on the back, “hyung, i left my jacket upstairs. let me go grab it.”

 

he slips his face mask back on, telling his manager to stay put as he heads to the elevators. when he arrives at the floor, he treads slowly on the carpet, stopping in front of bangtan’s door. the door is open, just ever so slightly.

 

seokjin’s fist is raised up, about to knock, when he stops.

 

he hears yoongi’s voice, angry, loud, almost scary to the point that it reminds seokjin of his previous trainers. the tension in the dorm slips through the cracks of the door and hits seokjin in the face, suffocating him, almost.

 

“i thought you could keep up the act jeongguk. you almost told him. if i didn’t come in- you could’ve-”

 

“what?” seokjin hears jeongguk say, “tell him the truth? or you just couldn’t stand the fact that me and jin-hyung were acting all intimate? is that what you’re afraid of, huh, yoongi-hyung?”

 

“guys-” a voice cuts in, maybe namjoon, seokjin thinks.

 

“this is ridiculous,” jimin’s voice stabs through the air, “i can’t believe you two are fighting over this.”

 

“i just wish we had him back,” jeongguk chokes out a moment later, his breathing heavy, “back when seokjin belonged to bangtan - to us.”

 

there’s a long pause, the sound of quiet footsteps on the floor. “oh guk,” yoongi says, “me too.”

 

and. and seokjin doesn’t understand. he stands in front of the door, half of him demanding answers, half of him wanting to turn on his heel and leave. a smaller part of him, questions the truth of their words - lets him sink into a fantasy he didn’t know he had. seokjin’s first nudges the surface of the door gently, but not enough to make a sound. his arm falls limp to his side.

 

“huh,” seokjin breathes out.

 

( _what jeongguk, yoongi, and seokjin had was not a love triangle. it was simply, yoongi and seokjin, eternal roommates, quiet and reserved, opposites in many ways but similar in so many others, and awfully in love - but that’s not what they call it. seokjin calls it fuck buddies, because he’s crude and slightly vulgar when it comes to his choice of words, but also because he’s blunt when it comes to reality and never lets his emotions get ahead of the objective truth._

 

_yoongi calls it “trainees-turned-idols-turned-roommates who rely on each other for sexual and emotional attachment but without the commitment and without the exposure because of the pressure that the industry has caved onto them”, but it’s too long of a mouthful, so yoongi calls it “perfect roommates”. yoongi doesn’t deny the in love part though, even if he doesn’t say it._

 

_and then there’s jeongguk. grown up under the influence of his hyungs, always developing fleeting hero-worship-esque crushes on them, that went through a cycle as he grew. he liked namjoon when he they first met, he stumbled over his feet when he saw yoongi first rap, and then so many more occasions and so many more crushes. then he had hit 17, going on 18, and fell deeper into the arms of seokjin, who was always soft with the maknae. this crush wouldn’t last, they all said, but it did. jeongguk loves seokjin, enough that it made seokjin feel guilty - and enough that it made a statement._

 

_yoongi knows - deep, down inside, that one day, seokjin’s going to look beyond yoongi’s feelings, beyond their odd relationship of roommates/fuck buddies/mutual support system, beyond the influences and dark holes of the industry - and find jeongguk there, waiting._

 

_so - what they have is not a love triangle. it’s this: yoongi and seokjin are in love. one wishes he could flaunt it, the other denies it. jeongguk and seokjin are great friends, but ones in love and the other wishes he wasn’t. yoongi and jeongguk have the relationship of a loving hyung and a loving dongsaeng, but they’re both angry at the world. at things they can’t control._

 

_jeongguk is angry because he needs to be. because he’s still young and tired and something he’s wanted and craved and loved has been snatched out his hands. but yet, now here he is, in a world entirely unfamiliar to them, being given back what he yearned for._

 

_and yoongi is angry but so much more afraid. that this is how it’s going to be. that it’s not going to be like those romcoms he’s always stayed late watching with seokjin; where their love defies all odds. because here he is, in a world he doesn’t know, doesn’t want, but subconsciously created, where their relationship is non-existent. it’s put to the test, but yoongi doesn’t have the answers. the universe has told him loud and clear, even though namjoon and hoseok deny it. even if jeongguk, if asked, denies it too._

 

_it’s as if: if seokjin had the choice, he wouldn’t have picked yoongi.)_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feedback is heavily appreciated! :-)


	17. stale fog in this star's heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yoongi tells seokjin the truth - his truth. life goes on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from 134340

 

 

that night, seokjin had knocked on the door and made a beeline for his jacket, ignoring the lingering stares and the question that hung above in the air: _did he hear?_

 

he didn’t pause even when jeongguk reached out a hand to stop him, and seokjin almost thought he would’ve tripped in an attempt to avoid it had it not been yoongi pulling jeongguk to the side. yoongi had stared at him then, with calculating but soft (and dare seokjin say it, _affectionate-_ ) eyes. seokjin looked away and the flash of disappointment that wrapped around the tension in the room suffocated him. something rang in his ears, their voices muffled as he let out a quick goodbye. his heart had drummed against his chest, trying to carve out an escape in the rib cage. seokjin didn’t stop to wonder why.

 

he turned the corner of the corridor and breathed.

 

the car trip back was quiet. seokjin stared outside his window, watching the passing lights of the lamp posts and cars and streets. he couldn’t keep that argument out of his head.

 

but maybe he heard wrong. and maybe there’s another meaning to _good old days_ and _with us_ , one not so universal that the implication leaves a tingling presence in seokjin’s mind. he doesn’t dwell on it, even if it peeks through as he lets the radio’s soft tunes distract him from the dim screen of his phone, lighting up with each incoming text.

 

seokjin lets himself get carried away with comeback preparation and solo activity. he doesn’t have time to think about nonsensical sentences conjured by people who he’s felt like he’s known for years - their presence builds up though, refusing to leave him. seokjin would be talking to kyungsoo, seeking him for advice for his latest drama because kyungsoo has always been an acting prodigy, and suddenly - he’d be reminded of yoongi’s gummy smile through kyungsoo’s, yoongi’s eyes through kyungsoo’s leveled stare - he can’t get him out of his head.

 

he can’t get them out of his head.

 

( _wish we were back to the good old days back when seokjin was a part of bangtan_ jeongguk had said, voice serious. seokjin had waited for the response of the other members, but there was nothing. no surprise, no laughter at the absolute absurdity of it all - nothing. seokjin brings the blanket up to his neck, eyes staring at the empty ceiling as moon light filters through from the opened window. _what do you mean jeon jeongguk_ , seokjin thinks to himself, _when was i ever a part of bangtan?_

 

 _i never was,_ seokjin repeats in his mind. he rolls over on his bed to grab his phone, sifting through the notifications in the exo group chat where chanyeol and baekhyun were arguing about when it was normal to sleep, and the beagle line group chat brims with noise as jongdae mocks chanyeol with their newly released line of exo stickers. and seokjin breathes.

 

this was home, with these lively people. even if they all moved out of their dorms, even if none of them really live together anymore, they were home - no matter how far apart they were.

 

so it’s ridiculous that when seokjin thinks about home, the first image that pops up isn’t the rest of exo - but in the embrace of bangtan.)

 

***

 

“do you really want this in the album though, hyung?” namjoon asks yoongi, pen hovering over a piece of paper. on it were the lyrics to seokjin’s awake, the ones seokjin wrote himself - but yoongi has it memorized down to every last syllable. the wings album was in the process of production, everyone had their own solo song and the usual rap line, vocal line, and whole group song. yet, this time, they were missing one song. seokjin’s.

 

none of them talked about it. they went about production as they always did, their producers pleasantly surprised at the amount of detail in everyone’s idea of their solo song and yoongi smiled, because he wanted to tell them that they’ve done this all before. lived this all before.

 

and because of this. production wrapped up weeks before the expected finish date, and now they can just work on the choreography and music video. bang pd was overjoyed at the pace of everything, patting yoongi’s back as he talked about how they saved so much more on costs now that everything’s wrapping up so fast.

 

yoongi sees it now. the greed in bang pd’s eyes. money has always been this man’s priorities, and while he’s always given the rest of them his utmost attention so much so they could all be considered family - it’s never really about them, but what they could produce. devoted fans that allowed them to transcend cultural barriers, break records, and were eager to consume anything that was bts related.

 

bang pd stays in his office all day gaining copyrights and licensing over things that were inherently theirs - bts’ - and yoongi wishes he could’ve saw the reason for seokjin’s disdain for the man earlier.

 

“hyung?” namjoon repeats, looking up at yoongi.

 

“yeah,” yoongi confirms, “this song deserves its place on the album.”

 

“but... how? who’s going to sing it? i don’t think any of them, especially jeongguk, would be happy with having to sing seokjin hyung’s song.”

 

“i know,” yoongi says as he exhales, “we’re all part of it. let’s just keep the bridge and modify the instrumental, maybe with more strings.”

 

“so a ballad for the whole group?” namjoon asks as he turns to yoongi. “what’s the message? not being good enough?” namjoon’s lips stretch out into a thin line.

 

yoongi sucks in a breath at that. _you were always good enough jin-hyung,_ he wants to say.

 

“i was thinking something like, lying awake at night knowing something is missing. knowing something is off, but not knowing what it actually is.”

 

namjoon writes it down on the paper, before he glances at yoongi, “you doing okay, hyung?”

 

“yeah,” yoongi breathes out.

 

“it’s alright to not be,” namjoon says, leaning in, “none of us really are.”

 

(the general public loved the song. it’s like the response spring day had gotten - a soft ballad about an ache so familiar to everyone that it jumped up in the charts, a lonely song for the lonely autumn days. it seems like everyone could relate to the heartbreak yoongi, and the rest of bangtan, had hid in the corners of their heart - the linings of their heart sewed together tight with hope and constant reassurance, so it wouldn’t fall out and leave another gaping hole.)

 

*

 

it’s after their wings promotions has finished when yoongi thinks about it. thinks about telling seokjin the truth.

 

the rest of them have agreed, technically. seokjin’s not replying to their texts anymore, other than the mere stickers and occasional _ㅋㅋㅋ_. it can’t get worse than this, they had reasoned after. yoongi’s texts have all been ignored and a shadow of disappointment and sadness always washes over jeongguk’s face whenever he checks his phone at night, the dim light of hope gone the moment jeongguk flips the light switch.

 

yoongi had set a special chime just for whenever seokjin texts. he hasn’t heard the sound since the day he had set it.

 

“how should we tell him?” taehyung questions, “i don’t think he’s willing to see us now.”

 

"it’s, um,” yoongi starts, “i’ll tell him. just me. at the mama after party.”

 

“what?” jeongguk asks, just as hoseok pipes in with a “what about the rest of us?”

 

“all of this,” yoongi says gesturing around him, “is because of me. this is my apology to make.”

 

jimin furrows his eyebrows, “you don’t have do that hyung,” he says sympathetically.

 

yoongi cracks a small smile, “it’s the least i can do.”

 

none of the members quite know the whole situation regarding yoongi’s and seokjin’s relationship. at a degree, they understand why yoongi has to talk to seokjin one on one, because it is his words that have sent them spiralling into a world that no one wished for (except yoongi, in that very short moment where he said what he did). but there’s an itch in yoongi. it’s not just that. yoongi needs to talk to seokjin because he needs to apologize to seokjin. he needs the seokjin, in this world, to understand where he’s coming from.

 

at this point. he doesn’t know if he’ll ever return to how it was before. but if he can’t tell bangtan’s seokjin the words that he should’ve said in the first place, then he needs to say them to exo’s seokjin.

 

maybe it’ll change things. maybe it won’t.

 

none of the members know that yoongi and seokjin are fuck buddies. they don’t know seokjin’s a skeptic of love, and that he’s afraid of it. they don’t know yoongi’s in love with seokjin, despite all the times seokjin has shut him down. perhaps yoongi deserves better, better than kim seokjin the skeptic who refuses to accept yoongi’s love as just that - _love_.

 

but yoongi doesn’t want better. better doesn’t exist, not when he has kim seokjin.

 

and all this - is a secret between the two of them. to their members, they’re ex-roommates and close friends, two hyungs that confide in each other, and they resemble an elderly couple forty years into their marriage. to their fans, they are eternal roommates, sin, polar opposites that fit so well together like ying and yang.

 

but really, they are just this: a skeptic and a romantic.

 

***

 

seokjin is ignoring bangtan. not purposely - he just doesn’t quite know how to respond. how to ask for the answers he wants. and it’s funny, because this is something he’s been doing since he was young, asking for what he wants because he wouldn’t be able to get it any other way.

 

but here he is, stuck.

 

he hides away, buries himself in promotions. lets the excuse of busy schedules take him out of the guilt from not replying to the messages. when their promotions are done, bangtan’s start. seokjin runs back and forth between magazine shoots and advertisements, but finds time on set in his dressing room to watch their music video and play their music.

 

seokjin lets the entire album shuffle through his ears, throat caught at how intimate the music is - how each of their solo songs are so uniquely them. he lets their voices take him on a journey.

 

it’s the next song that really catches his attention though. a soft voice enters among the strings.

 

then a rap, seokjin thinks it’s yoongi’s voice, strangely soft and mellow. he raps about missing something, an empty hole in his heart, a figure in the dark - reaching out, missing, losing.

 

(seokjin had a dream once about six faceless figures draped in black all dancing and singing, and seokjin was among them, having the time of his life. it screamed familiarity, and intimacy. when he reached out his hand to ruffle one of the figure’s hair, they disappeared. then the same figure came back, in another scene completely, with a soft smile on his face, headphones on his head.

 

a song drifted into the dream. it was his own voice. sad, aching, a song that seokjin has never sung before, in a tone seokjin has never felt before.

 

_wide awake wide awake wide awake don’t cry)_

 

*

 

seokjin stands up and claps as bangtan wins the artist of the year daesang. he tunes out the disappointed shrieks of his own fans, and lets the uproar of bangtan’s fans take over. his heart swells with pride, just a little bit, even though they’re not his fans at all. his practiced smile never leaves his lips, even when bangtan come together in a group huddle and something in seokjin’s heart drops, a little bit bitterness floating at the surface of his throat, begging to come out.

 

he bows to them as they pass, and gives them his best stage smile, and they return the same gesture - except their eyes linger with meaning seokjin doesn’t want to know.

 

seokjin lingers a bit, still standing up, before jongdae tugs him at the corner of his jacket to sit down.

 

“you doing okay?” jongdae whispers to him, worry creased between his eyebrows.

 

“i’m fine.”

 

seokjin looks down to the monitor, watching as each member’s eyes are teary with gratitude. namjoon makes his speech and seokjin stares. wonder why he feels so overwhelmed, and why his vision is getting blurred with tears. he wipes them away, turning back to look at the six of them on stage.

 

“we couldn’t have done this without you,” namjoon says into the mic. seokjin knows he’s addressing the fans, but namjoon’s facing seokjin and they make eye contact and something in seokjin stills.

 

they form back together into a huddle, and seokjin’s finger twitch at his sides, begging to reach out to be a part of them. he folds his fingers into a fist by his side, before unfolding them to resume his applause for them.

 

***

 

the mama after party is loud. idols mingle together, exchanging numbers over glasses of soju and on the dance floor. but it was fun, especially with the performances that always managed to liven the party. yoongi knows exo hangs out around their tables, mingling with everyone else.

 

with bangtan, seokjin was reserved at these parties. he’d throw his head back and take shot after shot, but rarely would you ever see him getting on the dancefloor and hyping up the performer on the stage. he prefered to lean back and just take in the scene.

 

exo’s seokjin is, quite different. he’s surrounded by people, hoobaes and sunbaes gathered around him chatting. seokjin is charismatic, lively and has everyone in bright moods. yoongi sits at the edge of his table, seokjin in the corner of his eye, and waits.

 

he sees seokjin making a girl blush, someone from a newly debuted girl group, lean and pretty and shy. joohyun, who was sitting next to seokjin, rolls her eyes and swats him on his shoulder. seokjin laughs and tips his head back for a drink.

 

yoongi looks away, trying to locate his members. jimin is talking to taemin, and namjoon is having a conversation with ailee. suran makes eye contact with him and waves in greeting before turning back to heize.

 

he’s sure the rest of maknae line and hoseok are having the time of their lives. yoongi wants to too, but his stomach churns at what he’s planning to do soon.

 

he turns back to seokjin and finds seokjin staring at him. yoongi blinks. seokjin tilts his head towards the private bar rooms and stands up.

 

*

 

“out with it,” seokjin says when yoongi closes the door behind him, “you’ve been staring all night.”

 

the tone of kindness and familiarity seokjin used to address yoongi with is almost gone, replaced with a tone that has yoongi blinking in surprise at the bluntness of it. bangtan’s seokjin was never straightforward with his feelings, but exo’s seokjin seem to know exactly what he wants.

 

“you’ve been ignoring me hyung,” yoongi responds, leaning on the door, “all of us.”

 

seokjin stares at him, before he scoffs. “how else do you want me to respond? yoongi-yah, you guys were speaking nonsense.”

 

“no, hyung, you need to know the truth.” yoongi starts, eyes narrowing at seokjin who opens his mouth to protest, “and you need to let me finish.”

 

and yoongi begins. to him, it is the truth - the complete and utter truth. to seokjin, it is a story. a familiar one, but a story at its very core spun from reality and fantasy.

 

“-and i was rude that night, i said things i shouldn’t have said and i don’t mean,” yoongi says, “when i told you to go to sm that night, i didn’t think the world would change where you were in sm, with exo, and you didn’t know who we were anymore. we all miss you, jeongguk especially and i just need you to know that.”

 

seokjin frowns, “yoongi, you’re not making any sense.”

 

a desperate feeling claws up yoongi’s throat, dread settling in at the pits of his stomach. “i love you,” he says, with every fiber in his soul, as if this was a disney movie and that true love would be enough to save the day, “and i wish i could’ve told you that when things weren’t so wrong. i had a song i wrote for you to sing because you never got lines, and i fought with all the producers on the line distribution for it because i wanted it to be showcasing your voice. i’m so sorry i fucked up. i’m so sorry i didn’t say any of this earlier, when i could.”

 

yoongi looks up, and the dread solidifies in his stomach at seokjin’s expression. “i don’t know what you, or the rest of your members are playing at, but i hope you know that i don’t believe a bit of it. you come in here telling me i’m actually a member of bts? how does that make sense in any way? i’ve trained in sm for years, debuted with exo and have known them since we were all children.” seokjin inhales, looking away, lips turned downwards, “i don’t think you know how crazy you sound right now.”

 

this is not a disney movie. true love does not save the day.

 

“please,” yoongi breathes out, “just understand.” the seokjin yoongi knew would have forgave him by now. would’ve pulled yoongi into a hug. that was his mistake. he should’ve known the person he was entering into a conversation with wasn’t bangtan’s seokjin, but exo’s.

 

seokjin’s eyes turn cold as he looks at yoongi, “i understand you’re all delusional and need to see some sort of therapist. i had my fair share of sasaeng fans but your entire story in trying to prove that i’m a bts member is far crazier than anything they have done. what was the point of this story? to build another scandal for me? headlines of kim seokjin planning to leave exo for bts filling the tabloids… who sent you?”

 

“and to think,” seokjin continues, a hysteric laugh bubbling at his lips, “i actually thought we were becoming good friends. all of us.”

 

“seokjin,” yoongi utters, his eyes are getting teary, “that’s not-”

 

“i worked hard to be where i am today. i refuse to let you take that away from me and my members.”

 

yoongi, defeated, shakes his head. “no. no, that’s not it. i just needed to tell you this. you needed to know the context of that argument.”

 

“well now i do,” seokjin says, a crude smile on his lips, “and it’s absolutely bullshit. nice knowing you, min yoongi.”

 

he brushes past him, knocking yoongi on the shoulder. seokjin stops with his hand over the doorknob, looking behind his back.

 

“go see a therapist. it’s not me you should be talking to.”

 

the truth is hard to swallow. yoongi’s truth is not seokjin’s truth - their realities are different. yoongi is sinking down to his knees with his hands folded across his face, shoulders shaking, when he comes to a realization.

 

this was their reality now.

 

(the rest of bangtan find him in the corner of the private room, hoseok explaining he had to ask all over before seokjin told them, face stony as he did so.

 

yoongi smiled weakly, completely numb. he didn’t know what to say, how to phrase his words so that the rest of them don’t feel the same waterfall of hurt cascading down on them. but he doesn’t need to say anything, they can all read him so well. it doesn’t take much to figure out the result of that conversation.

 

“it’s alright hyung,” jimin murmurs, “we’ll be okay.”

 

but jimin’s smile is strained. after a few seconds, jimin breaks down in front of him. the six of them pile together in a hug, in the corner of this room, and outside, the loud bass rivets across the club.

 

they’ll survive, yoongi thinks as he tightens his hold on jeongguk’s jacket. they have to.)

 

***

 

the first thing seokjin does when he’s in the van taking them back to their homes is he blocks them on kakaotalk and instagram. he deletes their number from their contacts and blacklists them, and he expects a sense of peace to finally visit him.

 

it doesn’t. in fact, something turns and shifts like an wound up knot in his stomach. it makes him feel sick, and seokjin wonders if he did the right thing. but - of course he did, how else could he react when someone’s telling him a made up story about something so absurd?

 

kim seokjin without sm, without exo, is nothing.

 

*

 

“jimin says hi,” jongin says to him, not even looking up from his phone. all ten of them are gathered in chanyeol’s living room, a little celebration and feast to ponder over their future. seokjin stiffens, and kyungsoo nudges him.

 

“hyung, you okay?”

 

“i’m fine,” seokjin murmurs into the rim of his glass. jongin looks up, quirking an eyebrow at seokjin, expecting the universal _tell him i said hi back_ but seokjin stays quiet.

 

“jimin says hi,” jongin repeats. seokjin nods, finishing the rest of his drink. “that’s nice,” he says, before he turns around and leaves.

 

he finds himself in the washroom, pouring cold water over his face as he stares at his reflection in the mirror. seokjin leans in, wondering if the dark bags under his eyes are actually his. he leans back when there’s a knock at the door.

 

“jin-hyung,” kyungsoo’s voice filters through, “chanyeol’s planning on getting take-out. are you okay with that?”

 

“sure,” seokjin says, wiping a towel over his face, but his voice comes out broken.

 

“hyung? are you okay?”

 

seokjin opens the door and smiles. “i’m fine,” he says, even though he’s anything but.

 

kyungsoo stares at him, pity framed upon his face. “deja vu,” kyungsoo says, “we just had that conversation.”

 

“and i’m fine.” seokjin repeats.

 

“what’s with you and jimin-ssi?” kyungsoo questions as they walk down to the hallway to the living room.

 

“me and bangtan aren’t exactly on good terms now,” seokjin responds nonchalantly, though his heartbeat is drumming in his ears.

 

“oh,” kyungsoo says, “that’s too bad. they seem like good people.”

 

seokjin hums in response. they were good people, seokjin can feel it, but they were people who had delusional ideas and seokjin’s not going to believe them just because they feel familiar, and safe.

 

***

 

life goes on. for all of them. while comebacks for exo decreased, solo activities for seokjin soared. he attends premieres for his own films, sings ost’s for upcoming dramas and is always topping search engines whenever he makes his presence on any show. in his free time, he finds time with the rest of exo, and his ninety-two line buddies - going out for games and drinks.

 

for bangtan, their popularity soars. every comeback, they’re breaking records. every day, the company reels in enough money to fly them to the moon and back. their life is great - they have it all. everything a trainee entering the idol industry dreamed of, was within the grasp of their fingertips.

 

they’re happy, even if in the corner of their badly sewn together heart, lies a growing hole where their memories of bangtan’s seokjin exists. it’s unsettling, but they are professionals. they hide it in the back of their minds, protect their hearts with their rib cage, and try to not think about their hyung who would give them the world if they ever asked for it.

 

at first there’s disbelief and anger and frustration and in a battle where yoongi knows he was never meant to win - finally, defeat.

 

this is not how the world ends, no matter how many clickbait articles upload every day with the same title about the impending doom of the human race. but yoongi’s world has already slipped out of his fingers - so it doesn’t matter anymore.

 

life goes on. sometimes, yoongi wished it didn’t. they can do anything they want now, buy anything they want now, become anyone they want - but yoongi doesn’t crave the taste of success anymore, not when it’s bitter mouthfuls of _he should be here with us right now_. every day is a constant reminder that yoongi’s success is nothing but a failure. success doesn’t exist, not when seokjin’s gone.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fingers crossed for that happy ending everybody

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys - if you wanna talk to me, about this fic, about yourself, or about me; below is where you can find me!
> 
> on twitter as [@nxctem](https://www.twitter.com/nxctem)  
> on tumblr as [@noctemlux](http://www.noctemlux.tumblr.com)  
> on curious cat as [@noctemlux](https://www.curiouscat.me/noctemlux)
> 
> <3


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